There was no other room upon this floor. Above this floor there were only the rooms of the servants. He went downstairs to the dining-room and rang the bell The parlour-maid came in answer to his summons. "Where is your mistress?" he asked. "Gone out, sir; she went at eight o'clock this morning. And O, if you please, sir, Dr. Jedd called, and said I was to give you this--with the certificate." The certificate! Yes, the certificate of Charlotte Halliday's death,--the certificate which he must produce to-morrow, with other evidence, for the satisfaction of the bill-discounter and his legal adviser. He stared at the girl, still possessed by the sense of bewilderment which had come upon him on seeing those empty rooms upstairs. He took the letter from her almost mechanically, and tore it open without looking at the address. The certificate dropped to the ground. He picked it up with a tremulous hand, and for some moments stood staring at it with dazzled, unseeing eyes. He could see that it was a document with dates and names written in a clerkly hand. For some moments he could see no more. And then words and names shone out of the confusion of letters that spun and whirled, like motes in the sunshine, before his dazzled eyes. "Valentine Hawkehurst, bachelor, author, Carlyle Terrace, Edgware Road, son of Arthur Hawkehurst, journalist; Charlotte Halliday, spinster, of the Lawn, Bayswater, daughter of Thomas Halliday, farmer." He read no more. It was a copy of a certificate of marriage--not a certificate of death--that had been brought to him. "You can go," he said to the servant hoarsely. He had a vague consciousness that she was staring at him with curious looks, and that it was not good for him to be watched by any one just now. "About dinner, sir, if you please?" the young woman began timidly. "What do I know about dinner?" "You will dine at home, sir?" "Dine at home? Yes; Mrs. Woolper can give you your orders." "Mrs. Woolper has gone out, sir. She has gone for good, I believe, sir; she took her boxes. And Miss Paget's luggage will be sent for, if you please, sir. There's a letter, sir, that Mrs. Woolper left for you on the mantelpiece." "She was very good. That will do; you can go." The girl departed, bewildered like her fellow-servants by the strangeness of the day's proceedings, still more bewildered by the strangeness of her master's manner. CHAPTER VII. "THERE IS A WORD WILL PRIAM TURN TO STONE." When the servant was gone, Mr. Sheldon sat down and examined the document she had given him.