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Rh ise you that you shall have no more anxiety about your future."

The girl rose to her feet. The packet was already transferred to the bosom of her dress.

"I have told you my terms," she said. "Some of you know all about it, I dare say! Tell me the truth and you shall have the packet, any one of you."

Wrayson leaned forward.

"The truth is simple," he said earnestly. "We do not know. I can answer for myself. I think that I can answer for the others."

"Then the packet shall help me to find out," she declared.

The Baroness shook her head.

"It will not do, my dear girl," she said quietly. "The packet is not yours."

The girl faced her defiantly.

"Who says that it is not mine?" she demanded.

"I do," the Baroness replied.

"And I!" Wrayson echoed.

"And I say that it is hers—hers and mine," Sydney Barnes declared. "She shall do what she likes with it. She shall not be made to give it up."

"Mrs. Barnes," the Baroness declared briskly, "you must try to be reasonable. We will buy the packet from you."

Sydney Barnes nodded his head approvingly.

"That," he said, "is what I call talking common sense."

"We will give you a thousand pounds for it," the Baroness continued.

"It's not enough, not near enough," Barnes called out hastily. "Don't you listen to them, Agnes."

"I shall not," she answered. "Ten thousand pounds would not buy it. I have said my last word. I am going now. In three days' time I shall return. I will