Mr Braggett made a dash at the vase, and found the three-cornered note as he had been told. Yes! it was Charlotte’s handwriting, or the facsimile of it, there was no doubt of that; and his hands shook so he could hardly open the paper. It contained these words: ‘You tell me that I am not to call at your office again, except on business, nor to send letters to your private address, lest it should come to the knowledge of your wife, and create unpleasantness between you; but I _shall_ call, and I _shall_ write until I have seen Mrs Braggett, and if you don’t take care I will introduce myself to her, and tell her the reason you have been afraid to do so.’ Precisely the same words, in the same writing of the letter he still carried in his breast-pocket, and which no mortal eyes but his and hers had ever seen. As the unhappy man sat gazing at the opened note, his whole body shook as if he were attacked by ague. ‘It is Miss Cray’s handwriting, isn’t it, sir?’ ‘It looks like it, Hewetson, but it cannot be. I tell you it is an impossibility! Miss Cray died last month, and I have seen not only her grave, but the doctor and nurse who attended her in her last illness. It is folly, then, to suppose either that she called here or wrote that letter.’ ‘Then _who could it have been_, sir?’ said Hewetson, attacked with a sudden terror in his turn. ‘That is impossible for me to say; but should the lady call again, you had better ask her boldly for her name and address.’ ‘I’d rather you’d depute the office to anybody but me, sir,’ replied the clerk, as he hastily backed out of the room. Mr Braggett, dying with suspense and conjecture, went through his business as best he could, and hurried home to Violet Villa. There he found that his wife had been spending the day with a friend, and only entered the house a few minutes before himself. ‘Siggy, dear!’ she commenced, as soon as he joined her in the drawing-room after dinner; ‘I really think we should have the fastenings and bolts of this house looked to. Such a funny thing happened whilst I was out this afternoon. Ellen has just been telling me about it.’ ‘What sort of a thing, dear?’ ‘Well, I left home as early as twelve, you know, and told the servants I shouldn’t be back until dinner-time; so they were all enjoying themselves in the kitchen, I suppose, when cook told Ellen she heard a footstep in the drawing-room. Ellen thought at first it must be cook’s fancy, because she was sure the front door was fastened; but when they listened, they all heard the noise together, so she ran upstairs, and what on earth do you think she saw?’ ‘How can I guess, my dear?’ ‘Why, a lady, seated in this very room, as if she was waiting for somebody. She was oldish, Ellen says, and had a very white face, with long curls hanging down each side of it; and she wore a blue bonnet with white feathers, and a long black cloak, and—’