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The contemptuous smile died away from the trainer’s lips as Steeve Hargraves made this revelation of his sentiments, and gave place to a darkly thoughtful expression, which overshadowed the whole of his face. “I’ve no such wonderful love for Mrs. Mellish myself,” he said; “but she might live to be as old as Methuselah for aught I care, if she’d”— he muttered something between his teeth, and walked up the little staircase to his bedroom, whistling a popular tune as he went. He came down again with a dirty-looking leather desk in his hand, which he flung carelessly on to the table. It was stuffed with crumpled, untidy-looking letters and papers, from among which he had considerable difficulty in selecting a tolerably clean sheet of note-paper. “You’ll take a letter to Mrs. Mellish, my friend,” he said to Stephen, stooping over the table and writing as he spoke, “and you’ll please to deliver it safely into her own hands. The windows will all be open this sultry weather, and you can watch till you see her in the drawing-room; and when you do, contrive to beckon her out, and give her this.” He had folded the sheet of paper by this time, and had sealed it carefully in an adhesive envelope. “There’s no need of any address,” he said, as he handed the letter to Steeve Hargraves; “you know who it’s for, and you won’t give it to anybody else. There, get along with you. She’ll say nothing to you, man, when she sees who the letter comes from.”