f my fancy. It
brought back to me my love for her. I remembered my promise to the
Judge. I recalled her tenderness and purity, which I had felt so
strongly that I had expected to see it about her like an effulgence. I
cursed myself for doubting her. I looked upon the evidence of the scrap
of paper in my hand as a piece of testimony brought against an innocent
person. Not only with the instinct of a lover, but that of a lawyer as
well, I determined to defend her from my own accusations.

I had not been without the necessity, once or twice in my practice, of
calling upon experts in handwriting; now I remembered that one of them,
a clever fellow named Jarvis, lived in an apartment not far from mine.
It was the dinner hour. I believed I should find him and I was right.

"I have come on a peculiar errand," I explained to him as he appeared in
his library, napkin in hand, "and if you are not through dinner, I will
wait."

"No, no," said he, with easy falsehood. "I had just finished. How can I
help you, Mr. Estabrook?"

"I wish your opinion on two pieces of handwriting," I answered. "It is
unnecessary for me to tell you where I got them, you understand. The
question at issue is, did one person write both, and if not, is one of
them an imitation of the other?"

He flourished a powerful reading-glass in the professional manner those
fellows use and gave the two specimens a cursory examination.

"The problem should not be difficult," he said, "since both were written
hastily. In the case of the pencil, it is clear from the manner in which
the fine fibres of the paper are brushed forward like grass leaning in
the wind. In the case of the ink, the wet pen has gone back to cross a t
or complete an imperfectly formed letter before the earlier strokes had
time to dry."

"That would preclude imitation?" I asked.

"Why, yes. Offhand, I should say so--unless the one who made the attempt
had practiced for years, or has the skill of imitation developed beyond
that of any professional forger. But give me a moment, please."

I waited, tapping with my fingers on the chair arm.

He straightened up at last, with a sigh, then looked at me with his
eyebrows drawn and a look of perplexity on his thin, cadaverous face.

"It's very odd," said he.

"What's very odd?"

"Well, Mr. Estabrook, these pieces were not written several years
apart--at different periods of life, were they?"

"Why, no," said I.

"They are not the work of one