pe is identical on both sides of this make-believe clipping,
while in fact there is always a perceptible difference between that used
in the obituary column and that to be found in the columns devoted to
other matter. Notice also," I continued, holding up the scrap of paper
between her and the light, "that the alignment on one side is not
exactly parallel with that on the other; a discrepancy which would not
exist if both sides had been printed on a newspaper press. These facts
lead me to conclude, first, that the effort to match the type exactly
was the mistake of a man who tried to do too much; and, secondly, that
one of the sides at least, presumably that containing the obituary
notice, was printed on a hand-press, on the blank side of a piece of
galley proof picked up in some newspaper office."

"Let me see." And stretching out her hand with the utmost eagerness, she
took the slip and turned it over. Instantly a change took place in her
countenance. She sank back in her seat and a blush of manifest confusion
suffused her cheeks. "Oh!" she exclaimed; "what will you think of me! I
brought this scrap of print into the house _myself_, and it was I who
pinned it on the cushion with my own hands! I remember it now. The sight
of those words recalls the whole occurrence."

"Then there is one mystery less for us to solve," I remarked, somewhat
drily.

"Do you think so?" she protested, with a deprecatory look. "For me the
mystery deepens, and becomes every minute more serious. It is true that
I brought this scrap of newspaper into the house, and that it had, then
as now, the notice of my husband's death upon it, but the time of my
bringing it in was Tuesday night, and he was not found dead till
Wednesday morning."

"A discrepancy worth noting," I remarked.

"Involving a mystery of some importance," she concluded.

I agreed to that.

"And since we have discovered how the slip came into your room, we can
now proceed to the clearing up of this mystery," I observed. "You can,
of course, inform me where you procured this clipping which you say you
brought into the house?"

"Yes. You may think it strange, but when I alighted from the carriage
that night, a man on the sidewalk put this tiny scrap of paper into my
hand. It was done so mechanically that it made no more impression on my
mind than the thrusting of an advertisement upon me. Indeed, I supposed
it was an advertisement, and I only wonder that I retained it in my ha