"No; I---" She stood there fidgeting. "It was a letter, Mrs. Piper, that I put somewhere. "A letter? Your own letter?" asked Evylyn. "No, it was to you. 'Twas this afternoon, Mrs. Piper, in the last mail. The postman give it to me and then the back door-bell rang. I had it in my hand, so I must have stuck it somewhere. I thought I'd just slip in now and find it." "What sort of a letter? From Mr. Donald?" "No, it was an advertisement, maybe, or a business letter. It was a long narrow one, I remember." They began a search through the music-room, looking on trays and mantelpieces, and then through the library, feeling on the tops of rows of books. Martha paused in despair. "I can't think where. I went straight to the kitchen. The dining-room, maybe." She started hopefully for the dining-room, but turned suddenly at the sound of a gasp behind her. Evylyn had sat down heavily in a Morris chair, her brows drawn very close together eyes blanking furiously. "Are you sick?" For a minute there was no answer. Evylyn sat there very still and Martha could see the very quick rise and fall of her bosom. "Are you sick?" she repeated. "No," said Evylyn slowly, "but I know where the letter is. Go 'way, Martha. I know." Wonderingly, Martha withdrew, and still Evylyn sat there, only the muscles around her eyes moving--contracting and relaxing and contracting again. She knew now where the letter was--she knew as well as if she had put it there herself. And she felt instinctively and unquestionably what the letter was. It was long and narrow like an advertisement, but up in the corner in large letters it said "War Department" and, in smaller letters below, "Official Business." She knew it lay there in the big bowl with her name in ink on the outside and her soul's death within. Rising uncertainly, she walked toward the dining-room, feeling her way along the bookcases and through the doorway. After a moment she found the light and switched it on. There was the bowl, reflecting the electric light in crimson squares edged with black and yellow squares edged with blue, ponderous and glittering, grotesquely and triumphantly ominous. She took a step forward and paused again; another step and she would see over the top and into the inside--another step and she would see an edge of white--another step--her hands fell on the rough, cold surface-- In a moment she was tearing it open, fumbling with an obstinate fold, holding it before her while the typewritten page glared out and struck at her. Then it fluttered like a bird to the floor. The house that had seemed whirring, buzzing a moment since, was suddenly very quiet; a breath of air crept in through the open front door carrying the noise of a passing motor; she heard faint sounds from upstairs and then a grinding racket in the pipe behind the bookcases-her husband turning of a water-tap---