Mrs. Clarke went away on her errand. Katharine, all her senses quickened, heard her step upon each stair until she reached the hall. A strange, lonely, nervous feeling came over her, and she rose from her seat by the bedside, and went over to the fireplace. As she stood idly by the chimneypiece, an unusually strong nicker of the flame shone upon something bright which lay upon the ground. Katharine stooped, and picked up a bunch of keys and a handful of crumpled papers. She laid the keys upon the mantelshelf, and mechanically turned over the papers. The card of the races she threw into the fire, the others she smoothed out; and finding some memoranda apparently containing calculations among them, she thought it would be well to put them away safely. With the intention of doing so, she took up the keys again, and opened the heavy door of the oak cabinet. Mr. Guyon, like many men devoted to the business of pleasure, was very orderly in his arrangements, and kept all his papers with an enviable degree of precision. The long shallow drawers of the cabinet had each its neat parchment label, indicating the contents; and the lowest of the range bore the superscription, "miscellaneous letters." Katharine pulled the pendent brass ring attached to this drawer with a little more force than was necessary to open it. The drawer slid out easily, and the whole of its contents were exposed to her view. At the back, in the right-hand corner, lay a small packet, slipped into an elastic band, on which her quick eye caught her own name, written in a hand she knew well--her own name, as it had been--"Miss Guyon"--and a date scrawled in the corner. The blood rushed hotly into Katharine's face as she took the packet out of the drawer and carried it to the fireplace, where she examined it by the light of a [xxx ?] lamp. It consisted of four letters: the uppermost that on which her name was written: the undermost was placed in the bands so that the address did not show; but a line was written on xxxx Mr. Guyon's hand--"shown to R.S."