m in his actions.
In this case I should like to make believe for a few moments that I am
Mr. Spielhagen" (with what a delicious smile she said this) "I should
like to hold his thesis in my hand and be interrupted in my reading by
Mr. Cornell offering his glass of cordial; then I should like to nod and
slip off mentally into a deep sleep. Possibly in that sleep the dream
may come which will clarify the whole situation. Will you humour me so
far?"

A ridiculous concession, but finally she had her way; the farce was
enacted and they left her as she had requested them to do, alone with
her dreams in the small room.

Suddenly they heard her cry out, and in another moment she appeared
before them, the picture of excitement.

"Is this chair standing exactly as it did when Mr. Spielhagen occupied
it?" she asked.

"No," said Mr. Upjohn, "it faced the other way."

She stepped back and twirled the chair about with her disengaged hand.

"So?"

Mr. Upjohn and Mr. Spielhagen both nodded, so did the others when she
glanced at them.

With a sign of ill-concealed satisfaction, she drew their attention to
herself; then eagerly cried:

"Gentlemen, look here!"

Seating herself, she allowed her whole body to relax till she presented
the picture of one calmly asleep. Then, as they continued to gaze at
with fascinated eyes, not knowing what to expect, they saw something
white escape from her lap and slide across the floor till it touched and
was stayed by the wainscot. It was the top page of the manuscript she
held, and as some inkling of the truth reached their astonished minds,
she sprang impetuously to her feet and, pointing to the fallen sheet,
cried:

"Do you understand now? Look where it lies and then look here!"

She had bounded towards the wall and was now on her knees pointing to
the bottom of the wainscot, just a few inches to the left of the fallen
page.

"A crack!" she cried, "under what was once the door. It's a very thin
one, hardly perceptible to the eye. But see!" Here she laid her finger
on the fallen paper and drawing it towards her, pushed it carefully
against the lower edge of the wainscot. Half of it at once disappeared.

"I could easily slip it all through," she assured them, withdrawing
the sheet and leaping to her feet in triumph. "You know now where the
missing page lies, Mr. Spielhagen. All that remains is for Mr. Van
Broecklyn to get it for you."

IV

The cries of mingled astonishment and reli