The Seer seized his chance, and rose briskly to obey her. As he brushed past her side, Philippina, in a quiver, put out her hand for her letter. The room was black as night. She fumbled for it in vain; a cold chill came over her. “Why, where’s that paper?” she exclaimed, in a tone of most evident and undisguised dismay. “I wish I had a match. It was lying here a minute ago.” Mr Holmes stood calmly in the dark, with his hand upon the bell-handle. He was in no hurry to ring it. “You’ll have to wait now,” he said, in his very coolest manner, “till the servant comes up. Unfortunately, I don’t happen to have a match about me.” “There are some upon the mantelpiece, perhaps,” Philippina faltered, unwilling to rise and move away from the table that held that compromising letter. “Oh, that’s all right!” the Seer said quietly, in his slow Western drawl. “Don’t trouble yourself about me. I can see very well in the dark without one.” Then he began to read aloud, “Du liebste Philippina!” Philippina made a wild dash across the room in his direction. This was horrible! He had abstracted it! But the Seer, unabashed, took a step or two backward with great deliberation. “That’s all right!” he said again, in a languid tone of the blandest unconcern. “There’s nothing fresh here; you needn’t trouble yourself. It’s only a little note from a very old friend, signed, ‘Thy ever affectionate, Andreas Hausberger.’” Philippina darted once more blindly in the direction of the voice; Joaquin Holmes heard her coming, and stepped aside noiselessly. He passed his practised finger-tips again over the lines of the writing. “Very pretty!” he said, smiling. “Very nice, indeed—for Signora Casalmonte! Why, I fancied you were her friend. This is charming, charming! And only to think so prudent a man as our dear friend Hausberger should have ventured to write such a compromising letter! ‘At three o’clock to-morrow, at the usual place,’ he says. Dear me, that’s interesting! So you’ve met him there before! And what a fool the man must be to go and put it on paper!” Philippina clasped her hands, and dashed wildly against the sofa. “Oh, give it back to me!” she cried, really alarmed. “What will Andreas ever say! How _can_ you be so cruel? And my husband—my husband!”