the
bedspread, flutter gently and move as if to draw attention to his wife
and the three beautiful children clustered at the foot-board.

He had not spoken nor could she speak, but the solemnity with which she
raised her right hand as to a listening Heaven called forth upon his
lips what was possibly his last smile, and with the memory of this faint
expression of confidence on his part, she left the room, to make her
final attempt to solve the mystery of the missing document.

Facing the elderly lady in the hall, she addressed her with the force
and soberness of one leading a forlorn hope:

"I want you to concentrate your mind upon what I have to say to you. Do
you think you can do this?"

"I will try," replied the poor woman with a backward glance at the door
which had just been closed upon her.

"What we want," said she, "is, as I stated before, an insight into the
workings of your brain at the time you took the will from the safe.
Try and follow what I have to say, Mrs. Quintard. Dreams are no
longer regarded by scientists as prophecies of the future or even as
spontaneous and irrelevant conditions of thought, but as reflections of
a near past, which can almost without exception be traced back to the
occurrences which caused them. Your action with the will had its birth
in some previous line of thought afterwards forgotten. Let us try
and find that thought. Recall, if you can, just what you did or read
yesterday."

Mrs. Quintard looked frightened.

"But, I have no memory," she objected. "I forget quickly, so quickly
that in order to fulfill my engagements I have to keep a memorandum of
every day's events. Yesterday? yesterday? What did I do yesterday? I
went downtown for one thing, but I hardly know where."

"Perhaps your memorandum of yesterday's doings will help you."

"I will get it. But it won't give you the least help. I keep it only for
my own eye, and--"

"Never mind; let me see it."

And she waited impatiently for it to be put in her hands.

But when she came to read the record of the last two days, this was all
she found:

Saturday: Mauretania nearly due. I must let Mr. Delahunt know today that
he's wanted here to-morrow. Hetty will try on my dresses. Says she has
to alter them. Mrs. Peabody came to lunch, and we in such trouble! Had
to go down street. Errand for Clement. The will, the will! I think of
nothing else. Is it safe where it is? No peace of mind till to-morrow.
Clement better this