THE EXIT OF SCOTT, THE SECRETARY One of the first duties which the secretary was called upon to perform, during his brief stay at Fair Oaks, was to make a copy of the lost will.

He still retained in his possession the stenographic notes of the original document as it had been dictated by Hugh Mainwaring on that last morning of his life, and it was but the work of an hour or two to again transcribe them in his clear chirography.
Engaged in this work, he was seated at the large desk in the tower-room, which had that morning been opened for use for the first time since the death of its owner.

He wrote rapidly, and the document was nearly completed when Mr.Whitney and Ralph Mainwaring together entered the adjoining room.
"Egad!" he heard the latter exclaim, angrily, "if that blasted scoundrel thinks he has any hold on me, or that he can keep me on the rack as he did Hugh, he'll find he has made the biggest mistake of his life.

It is nothing but a blackmailing scheme, and I've more than half a mind to sift the whole matter to the bottom and land that beggarly impostor where he belongs." "I hardly know just what to advise under the circumstances," Mr.
Whitney answered, quietly, "for I, naturally, have some personal feeling in this matter, and I am forced to believe, Mr.Mainwaring, that there is something back of all this which neither you nor I would care to have given publicity.

But, laying aside that consideration, I am of the opinion that it might not be to your interest to push this matter too closely." "On what grounds, sir, do you base your opinion ?" Mr.Mainwaring demanded.
The attorney's reply, however, was lost upon Scott, whose attention had been suddenly arrested by the imprint of a peculiar signature across one corner of the blotter upon which he was drying his work, now completed.