first wife!

This discovery aroused the enthusiasm of the searchers to fever height.

Spades and sieves were from that moment forbidden utensils. However
unpleasant the task might be, hands alone were used in the further
examination of the mound. The first and foremost necessity was to place
the morsels of paper (in flat cardboard boxes prepared for the purpose)
in their order as they were found. Night came; the laborers were
dismissed; Benjamin and his two colleagues worked on by lamplight. The
morsels of paper were now turned up by dozens, instead of by ones and
twos. For a while the search prospered in this way; and then the
morsels appeared no more. Had they all been recovered? or would renewed
hand-digging yield more yet? The next light layers of rubbish were
carefully removed--and the grand discovery of the day followed. There
(upside down) was the gum-bottle which the lodge-keeper's daughter
had spoken of. And, more precious still, there, under it, were more
fragments of written paper, all stuck together in a little lump, by the
last drippings from the gum-bottle dropping upon them as they lay on the
dust-heap!

The scene now shifted to the interior of the house. When the searchers
next assembled they met at the great table in the library at Gleninch.

Benjamin's experience with the "Puzzles" which he had put together in
the days of his boyhood proved to be of some use to his companions.
The fragments accidentally stuck together would, in all probability,
be found to fit each other, and would certainly (in any case) be the
easiest fragments to reconstruct as a center to start from.

The delicate business of separating these pieces of paper, and of
preserving them in the order in which they had adhered to each
other, was assigned to the practiced fingers of the chemist. But the
difficulties of his task did not end here. The writing was (as usual
in letters) traced on both sides of the paper, and it could only be
preserved for the purpose of reconstruction by splitting each morsel
into two--so as artificially to make a blank side, on which could
be spread the fine cement used for reuniting the fragments in their
original form.

To Mr. Playmore and Benjamin the prospect of successfully putting
the letter together, under these disadvantages, seemed to be almost
hopeless. Their skilled colleague soon satisfied them that they were
wrong.

He drew their attention to the thickness of the paper--note-paper of the