ns all we have a right to expect to find in it. I
want to be by myself for a moment."

Subduing my astonishment, I proceeded to comply with his request, but
scarcely had I lifted the lid of the box before me when he came hurrying
back, flung the letter down on the table with an air of the greatest
excitement, and cried:

"Did I say there had never been anything like it since the Lafarge
affair? I tell you there has never been anything like it in any affair.
It is the rummest case on record! Mr. Raymond," and his eyes, in his
excitement, actually met mine for the first time in my experience of
him, "prepare yourself for a disappointment. This pretended confession
of Hannah's is a fraud!"

"A fraud?"

"Yes; fraud, forgery, what you will; the girl never wrote it."

Amazed, outraged almost, I bounded from my chair. "How do you know
that?" I cried.

Bending forward, he put the letter into my hand. "Look at it," said he;
"examine it closely. Now tell me what is the first thing you notice in
regard to it?"

"Why, the first thing that strikes me, is that the words are printed,
instead of written; something which might be expected from this girl,
according to all accounts."

"Well?"

"That they are printed on the inside of a sheet of ordinary paper----"

"Ordinary paper?"

"Yes."

"That is, a sheet of commercial note of the ordinary quality."

"Of course."

"But is it?"

"Why, yes; I should say so."

"Look at the lines."

"What of them? Oh, I see, they run up close to the top of the page;
evidently the scissors have been used here."

"In short, it is a large sheet, trimmed down to the size of commercial
note?"

"Yes."

"And is that all you see?"

"All but the words."

"Don't you perceive what has been lost by means of this trimming down?"

"No, unless you mean the manufacturer's stamp in the corner." Mr.
Gryce's glance took meaning. "But I don't see why the loss of that
should be deemed a matter of any importance."

"Don't you? Not when you consider that by it we seem to be deprived of
all opportunity of tracing this sheet back to the quire of paper from
which it was taken?"

"No."

"Humph! then you are more of an amateur than I thought you. Don't you
see that, as Hannah could have had no motive for concealing where the
paper came from on which she wrote her dying words, this sheet must have
been prepared by some one else?"

"No," said I; "I cannot say that I see all that."

"Can't! Well