The shutters had been opened and the blinds drawn up, the fire was lighted, the chairs were set straight. But the large writing-table, with its litter of books and papers, had been left untouched. The housemaids at the Water House knew their duties too well to disturb anything there. There were letters on the mantelpiece, old letters thrust carelessly behind bronze candlesticks and Oriental jars. The butler went over to the hearth to examine these papers, with a faint hope that there might be a message from his missing master among them. The housekeeper went to look at a tray in the hall, where cards and letters were sometimes put, and where it was just possible her master might have left some message on a scrap of paper. Bella turned over the books on the table--a volume of Euripides, the last number of the _Westminster_, half a dozen pamphlets, political and scientific. She started, and looked at the butler, who was standing with his back to her, deliberately sorting the letters he had taken from the mantelpiece, chiefly receipted accounts which his master had thrust there and forgotten, Christian Harefield not being a man of business-like habits, or given to the docketing and pigeon-holing of unimportant papers. Here, under Bella Scratchell’s hand, lying half hidden among the books and pamphlets, was a letter that evidently meant something. A large blue envelope, sealed with the Harefield crest, and curiously addressed,-- ‘FOR MY DAUGHTER BEATRIX.’ A man would hardly write to his daughter, she living under the same roof with him, sitting at meat with him a few hours ago, unless he had something of an exceptional nature to tell her. These considerations and some more passed through Bella’s mind as she stood with her hand on the letter, her eyes on the butler’s portly back. He was entirely engrossed with his scrutiny of the envelopes in his hand, being of a slow and stolid temperament, and requiring leisure in which to grasp an idea. At this moment no one but Bella and the writer knew of the existence of this letter. And the writer, where was he? Bella put the letter into her pocket. ‘I will give it to her myself,’ she thought. ‘It will be better.’ ‘There’s nothing here, Miss Scratchell,’ said the butler, ‘and this is where master always puts his letters for the post.’ And then he came and surveyed the table with his slow gaze, which seemed feebly to interrogate the covers of the books, as if in the hope that they might tell him something. ‘Nothing on the table, ma’am?’ ‘Nothing,’ answered Bella.