earnestness, and being unwilling to thwart her, even in a
trifle, at a time when she was ill.

Accordingly, his horse was at the door at twelve precisely. Impatient to
get back to the precious volume of the _Times,_ he rode so much faster
than usual, and so shortened his visit to the old woman, that he was
home again by a quarter past two. Ascertaining from the servant who
opened the door that the volume had been left by Mr. Rambert's messenger
punctually at two, he ran up to his wife's room to tell her about his
visit before he secluded himself for the rest of the afternoon over his
work. On entering the bedroom he found it still darkened, and he was
struck by a smell of burned paper in it.

His wife (who was now dressed in her wrapper and lying on the sofa)
accounted for the smell by telling him that she had fancied the room
felt close, and that she had burned some paper--being afraid of the cold
air if she opened the window--to fumigate it. Her eyes were evidently
still weak, for she kept her hand over them while she spoke. After
remaining with her long enough to relate the few trivial events of his
ride, Mr. Carling descended to his study to occupy himself at last with
the volume of the _Times_.

It lay on his table in the shape of a large flat brown paper package.
On proceeding to undo the covering, he observed that it had been very
carelessly tied up. The strings were crooked and loosely knotted, and
the direction bearing his name and address, instead of being in the
middle of the paper, was awkwardly folded over at the edge of the
volume. However, his business was with the inside of the parcel; so
he tossed away the covering and the string, and began at once to hunt
through the volume for the particular number of the paper which he
wished first to consult.

He soon found it, with the report of the speeches delivered by the
members of the deputation, and the answer returned by the minister.
After reading through the report, and putting a mark in the place where
it occurred, he turned to the next day's number of the paper, to see
what further hints on the subject the letters addressed to the editor
might happen to contain.

To his inexpressible vexation and amazement, he found that one number of
the paper was missing.

He bent the two sides of the volume back, looked closely between the
leaves, and saw immediately that the missing number had been cut out.

A vague sense of something like alarm began to ming