There was nothing in the desk now but some of Carroll's writing materials; everything in the room had been ransacked at the time of its mistress' death, and Silvia had herself searched carefully for anything that might afford a possible clue. Sometimes she even thought that some one, possessing a key, had entered the place and removed all evidence while that ghastly witness still sat in the chair, for there were no letters, no papers, nothing. Immediately after going there to stay, Carroll had gone over the tiny place with systematic care. There was no upholstered furniture in which anything could have been concealed; even the divan was a rattan affair; there were only rugs upon the floors. The mattress revealed nothing, and though she laboriously examined every picture, there was nothing concealed back of them or within the frames. "Don't you think the letter was mailed?" Silvia asked her, and she had replied that while it probably had been, the chances were that a rough draft of it had been written, and preserved somewhere, and it was for this that she searched until it became evident that the slight resources of the flat were exhausted. It was rather a poor little place, woefully lacking in the closets and cubby-holes so dear to women, and yet, as Carroll sat there in the child's place, with her second cup of strong tea getting cold beside her, she found herself looking at the other chair expectantly, and the empty desk seemed watching her; she was resentfully conscious that everything in that room knew the truth, everything save its human occupant with her keen mind, her active brain. The hours passed and still she sat there, waiting, waiting. There were the usual noises, commonplace and mysterious, to be found in vacant houses, but about nine o'clock she became conscious that there were sounds in the recently vacated flat below. Evidently the family had come back for some last articles which they had left behind. They were a quiet old couple with whom Carroll had exchanged greetings now and then on the stairs; the old lady had told her they were going to live with their daughter. Carroll roused herself and lit the gas, and a little while later there came a tap at the door. She was frightened for a second, the sound was so unexpected, and then with a laugh at her foolishness she went to the door and opened it, revealing an old man, her neighbor from the floor below. He held a rather heavy package in his arms, and explained, rather shamefacedly, that they had no high-chair, and when their little grandchild was brought to visit them Mrs. Bell had been accustomed to lend them her big dictionary. "Not bein' literary she didn't need it, and the very afternoon of the day she died I came up to borrow it, same as usual; she had stepped out, but the door was ajar, and the dictionary lying right on the end of the divan, so I took it, and when I brought it back after supper I couldn't get in, and after the trouble my