BY PRIVATE TREATY There was little need for the three deeply interested listeners to look long at the letters--one glance was sufficient to show even a careless eye that the hand which had written one of them had certainly not written the other two.

The letter which Audrey had handed to Mr.Dennie was penned in the style commonly known as commercial--plain, commonplace, utterly lacking in the characteristics which are supposed to denote imagination and a sense of artistry.

It was the sort of caligraphy which one comes across every day in shops and offices and banks--there was nothing in any upstroke, downstroke or letter which lifted it from the very ordinary.

But the other two letters were evidently written by a man of literary and artistic sense, possessing imagination and a liking for effect.

It needed no expert in handwriting to declare that two totally different individuals had written those letters.
"And now," observed Mr.Dennie, breaking the silence and putting into words what each of the others was vaguely feeling, "the question is--what does all this mean?
To start with, Marston Greyle is a most uncommon name.