"Help!" Through the whole of the night, chopping, shifting winds had been tearing through the streets of London, now from the north, now from the south, now from the east, now from the west, now from all points of the compass at once; which last caprice--taking place for at least the twentieth time in the course of the hour which the bells of Big Ben were striking--was enough in itself to make the policeman on the beat doubtful of his senses. "What a chap hears in weather like this," he muttered

"It is better to be born lucky than rich" is one of the few proverbs to which the lie cannot be given by a proverb in the opposite direction. If Gerald Paget had had the choice, and had he been blessed with wisdom, he would have chosen luck in the place of riches, but he could not be credited with either of these conditions. He was born to riches, and he was too amiable and easy-natured to ripen into wisdom. When he first met Emilia Braham he was twenty-four years of age; she was eighteen, and i

In setting forth the incidents narrated in Book Second of this story, under its heading "A Life Drama--Links in the Mystery," I have had no occasion to speak of myself, my acquaintance with Emilia beginning after the 16th of January, on which night the Book fitly ends. In what has now to be told, however, I played a not unimportant part, and it is proper, and will be more convenient, that I should narrate what followed in the first person. I think my name, Robert Agnold, has been mentioned only