"Wait a minute; let me tell you what happened," she said. "When the postman came she gave him the letter for Alice, and he gave her the box. She didn't give him this letter because she hadn't stamps enough--see, it has but one--or perhaps she meant to use it as a threat; there was somebody who had a motive for killing her. The woman across the hall called her and she slipped this envelope into the dictionary and went out, leaving her door open; old Mr. Dillon came up and got the book; he's just been telling me about it. They never opened it, and after her body was found--Mrs. Bell's, I mean--his wife was so upset that she went to her daughter, and they forgot it entirely until to-night. When Mrs. Bell came back, she opened the package the postman had given her, and she never had a chance to miss anything after that." She lifted her hand, and Frank picked up the envelope and looked at it and then at her. "I believe you have solved the mystery," he said, "and that all you have not learned will be revealed when Silvia opens this envelope. Oh, this is wonderful, Carroll! I'll get a taxi, and we'll go to her at once." "I wouldn't," said the girl. "It'll be nearly midnight by the time we can get there, and if it is bad news--which it isn't--there's nothing she can do to-night, and if it is good--and I am sure it is, for us at least--it can wait until morning. Whichever it is, she needs a night's sleep before she faces any new complication." She took the envelope and looked at it again, and then at Frank Earl. With a little laugh she clutched it to her bosom, and holding out the other hand to him, she said, "Now, I'm ready to go to the kitchen and cook anything there is to be found in this section of New York!" "Carroll," he said, humbly, "would you mind if I proposed to you once more? We seem to need you in our family." CHAPTER XXI SILVIA HOLLAND'S GREAT PLEA TO THE JURY