then, answer me this. Why should Hannah, a girl about to
commit suicide, care whether any clue was furnished, in her confession,
to the actual desk, drawer, or quire of paper from which the sheet was
taken, on which she wrote it?"

"She wouldn't."

"Yet especial pains have been taken to destroy that clue."

"But----"

"Then there is another thing. Read the confession itself, Mr. Raymond,
and tell me what you gather from it."

"Why," said I, after complying, "that the girl, worn out with constant
apprehension, has made up her mind to do away with herself, and that
Henry Clavering----"

"Henry Clavering?"

The interrogation was put with so much meaning, I looked up. "Yes," said
I.

"Ah, I didn't know that Mr. Clavering's name was mentioned there; excuse
me."

"His name is not mentioned, but a description is given so strikingly in
accordance----"

Here Mr. Gryce interrupted me. "Does it not seem a little surprising to
you that a girl like Hannah should have stopped to describe a man she
knew by name?"

I started; it was unnatural surely.

"You believe Mrs. Belden's story, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Consider her accurate in her relation of what took place here a year
ago?"

"I do."

"Must believe, then, that Hannah, the go-between, was acquainted with
Mr. Clavering and with his name?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Then why didn't she use it? If her intention was, as she here
professes, to save Eleanore Leavenworth from the false imputation which
had fallen upon her, she would naturally take the most direct method
of doing it. This description of a man whose identity she could have at
once put beyond a doubt by the mention of his name is the work, not of
a poor, ignorant girl, but of some person who, in attempting to play the
_role_ of one, has signally failed. But that is not all. Mrs. Belden,
according to you, maintains that Hannah told her, upon entering the
house, that Mary Leavenworth sent her here. But in this document, she
declares it to have been the work of Black Mustache."

"I know; but could they not have both been parties to the transaction?"

"Yes," said he; "yet it is always a suspicious circumstance, when there
is a discrepancy between the written and spoken declaration of a person.
But why do we stand here fooling, when a few words from this Mrs.
Belden, you talk so much about, will probably settle the whole matter!"

"A few words from Mrs. Belden," I repeated. "I have had thousands
from her to