Clavering's handwriting when _you_
see it?"

"I do."

"And Miss Leavenworth's?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, which of the two was upon the envelope of the letter you gave
Hannah?"

"I couldn't say. It was a disguised handwriting and might have been that
of either; but I think----"

"Well?"

"That it was more like hers than his, though it wasn't like hers
either."

With a smile, Mr. Gryce enclosed the confession in his hand in the
envelope in which it had been found. "You remember how large the letter
was which you gave her?"

"Oh, it was large, very large; one of the largest sort."

"And thick?"

"O yes; thick enough for two letters."

"Large enough and thick enough to contain this?" laying the confession,
folded and enveloped as it was, before her.

"Yes, sir," giving it a look of startled amazement, "large enough and
thick enough to contain that."

Mr. Gryce's eyes, bright as diamonds, flashed around the room, and
finally settled upon a fly traversing my coat-sleeve. "Do you need to
ask now," he whispered, in a low voice, "where, and from whom, this
so-called confession comes?"

He allowed himself one moment of silent triumph, then rising, began
folding the papers on the table and putting them in his pocket.

"What are you going to do?" I asked, hurriedly approaching.

He took me by the arm and led me across the hall into toe sitting-room.
"I am going back to New York, ram going to pursue this matter. I am
going to find out from, whom came the poison which killed this girl, and
by whose hand this vile forgery of a confession was written."

"But," said I, rather thrown off my balance by all this, "Q and the
coroner will be here presently, won't you wait to see them?"

"No; clues such as are given here must be followed while the trail is
hot; I can't afford to wait."

"If I am not mistaken, they have already come," I remarked, as a
tramping of feet without announced that some one stood at the door.

"That is so," he assented, hastening to let them in.

Judging from common experience, we had every reason to fear that an
immediate stop would be put to all proceedings on our part, as soon as
the coroner was introduced upon the scene. But happily for us and the
interest at stake, Dr. Fink, of R ----, proved to be a very sensible
man. He had only to hear a true story of the affair to recognize at
once its importance and the necessity of the most cautious action in
the matter. Further, by a sort of symp