-day, and find the matter no nearer settled than in the
beginning."

"_You_ have had," said he, "but I have not. Fetch her in, Mr. Raymond."

I rose. "One thing," said I, "before I go. What if Hannah had found the
sheet of paper, trimmed just as it is, and used it without any thought
of the suspicions it would occasion!"

"Ah!" said he, "that is just what we are going to find out."

Mrs. Belden was in a flutter of impatience when I entered the
sitting-room. When did I think the coroner would come? and what did I
imagine this detective would do for us? It was dreadful waiting there
alone for something, she knew not what.

I calmed her as well as I could, telling her the detective had not yet
informed me what he could do, having some questions to ask her first.
Would she come in to see him? She rose with alacrity. Anything was
better than suspense.

Mr. Gryce, who in the short interim of my absence had altered his mood
from the severe to the beneficent, received Mrs. Belden with just that
show of respectful courtesy likely to impress a woman as dependent as
she upon the good opinion of others.

"Ah! and this is the lady in whose house this very disagreeable event
has occurred," he exclaimed, partly rising in his enthusiasm to greet
her. "May I request you to sit," he asked; "if a stranger may be allowed
to take the liberty of inviting a lady to sit in her own house."

"It does not seem like my own house any longer," said she, but in a sad,
rather than an aggressive tone; so much had his genial way imposed upon
her. "Little better than a prisoner here, go and come, keep silence or
speak, just as I am bidden; and all because an unhappy creature, whom
I took in for the most unselfish of motives, has chanced to die in my
house!"

"Just so!" exclaimed Mr. Gryce; "it is very unjust. But perhaps we can
right matters. I have every reason to believe we can. This sudden death
ought to be easily explained. You say you had no poison in the house?"

"No, sir."

"And that the girl never went out?"

"Never, sir."

"And that no one has ever been here to see her?"

"No one, sir."

"So that she could not have procured any such thing if she had wished?"

"No, sir."

"Unless," he added suavely, "she had it with her when she came here?"

"That couldn't have been, sir. She brought no baggage; and as for her
pocket, I know everything there was in it, for I looked."

"And what did you find there?"

"Some money in bills,