Mrs. Mallett sat silently for a little while, and then said in a rather softened voice, “Mr. Hewitt, I am not what is called a woman of sentiment, as you may have observed, and I have been most shamefully treated over this wretched seal--if that was really what Penner wanted. But if all you tell me has been actually what has happened, I have a sort of perverse inclination to forgive the man in spite of myself. The thing probably had been his mother’s--or, at any rate, he believed so--and his giving up his little all to attain the object of his ridiculous faith, and distributing his goods among the poor people and all that--really it’s worthy of an old martyr, if only it were done in the cause of a faith a little less stupid--though, of course, _he_ thinks his is the only religion, as others do of theirs. But then”--Mrs. Mallett stiffened again--“there’s not much to prove your theories, is there?” Hewitt smiled. “Perhaps not,” he said, “except that, to my mind, at any rate, everything points to my explanation being the only possible one. The thing presented itself to you, from the beginning, as an attempt on the snuff-box you value so highly, and the possibility of the seal being the object aimed at never entered your mind. I saw it whole from the outside, and on thinking the thing over after our first interview, I remembered Joanna Southcott. I think you will find I am right.” “Well, if you are, as I said, I half believe I shall forgive the man. We will advertise, if you like, telling him he has nothing to fear if he can give an explanation of his conduct consistent with what he calls his religious belief, absurd as it may be.” That night fell darker and foggier than the last. The advertisement went into the daily papers, but Reuben Penner never saw it. Late the next day a bargeman passing Old Swan Pier struck some large object with his boat-hook and brought it to the surface. It was the body of a drowned man, and it was afterwards identified as that of Reuben Penner, late greengrocer, of Hammersmith. How he came into the water there was nothing to show. Others have been drowned by accident on those foggy nights; but then there have also been suicides in the river Thames on nights just as foggy. Nobody knew There was no money nor any valuables found on the body, and there was a story of a large, heavy-faced man who had given a poor woman--a perfect stranger--a watch and chain and a handful of money down near Tower Hill on that foggy evening. But this again was only a story, not definitely authenticated. What was certain was that, tied securely round the dead man’s neck with a cord, and gripped and crumpled tightly in his right hand, was a soddened piece of vellum paper, blank, but carrying an old red seal, of which the device was almost entirely rubbed and cracked away. Nobody at the inquest quite understood this.