frightened me.

I looked narrowly all over the bunch, and felt all over it with the ends
of my fingers, and nothing came of that. Then I scraped it over slowly and
gently with my nails. My second finger-nail stuck a little at one place. I
parted the pile of the carpet over that place, and saw a thin slit which
had been hidden by the pile being smoothed over it--a slit about half an
inch long, with a little end of brown thread, exactly the color of the
carpet ground, sticking out about a quarter of an inch from the middle of
it.

Just as I laid hold of the thread gently, I heard a footstep outside of
the door.

It was only the head chambermaid. "Haven't you done yet?" she whispers.

"Give me two minutes," says I, "and don't let anybody come near the
door--whatever you do, don't let anybody startle me again by coming near
the door."

I took a little pull at the thread, and heard something rustle. I took a
longer pull, and out came a piece of paper, rolled up tight like those
candle-lighters that the ladies make. I unrolled it--and, by George there
was the letter!

The original letter! I knew it by the color of the ink. The letter that
was worth five hundred pounds to me! It was all that I could do to keep
myself at first from throwing my hat into the air and hurrahing like mad.
I had to take a chair and sit quiet in it for a minute or two, before I
could cool myself down to my proper business level. I knew I was safely
down again when I found myself pondering how to let Mr. Davager know that
he had been done by the innocent country attorney, after all.

It was not long before a nice little irritating plan occurred to me. I
tore a blank leaf out of my pocketbook, wrote on it with my pencil,
"Change for a five-hundred-pound note," folded up the paper, tied the
thread to it, poked it back into the hiding-place, smoothed over the pile
of the carpet, and then bolted off to Mr. Frank.

He in his turn bolted off to show the letter to the young lady, who first
certified to its genuineness, then dropped it into the fire, and then took
the initiative for the first time since her marriage engagement, by
flinging her arms round his neck, kissing him with all her might, and
going into hysterics in his arms.

So at least Mr. Frank told me.

It is evidence, however, that I saw them married with my own eyes on the
Wednesday; and that while they went off in a carriage-and-four to spend
the honeymoon, I went off on my own legs