"I have no cause of complaint against her," she answered, and though her voice showed no sign of emotion, I saw a sudden trembling seize her and shake her convulsively for a moment. Was it fear? Was it anger? Was it----? Curtiss saw it, too, and, attributing it to a very different cause, moved impatiently in his chair. I felt that I was hampered by these witnesses. I must get rid of them, if I was to have freedom of action--and without freedom of action I could do nothing. I turned again to the sheet of paper in my hand and examined it with care. It was an ordinary linen, unruled. I held it to the light and tried to decipher the watermark, but only two letters were on the sheet, "Re." The remainder of the word had been cut away when the sheet was trimmed to its present size. It seemed to me scarcely to possess the quality which one would expect in Miss Lawrence's writing-paper. The writing was in a woman's hand, a little irregular; but haste and stress of emotion would account for that. As I examined the writing more closely, I thought the ink seemed strangely fresh--scarcely dry, in fact; and yet, if the maid's story were true, the note had been lying upon the dresser for nearly three hours. And lying there unnoticed! "There's no doubt that Miss Lawrence wrote this?" I asked. "None whatever," answered Curtiss, with a quick shake of the head. "It's her writing--I knew it instantly." I read the note again, and, satisfied that I had it almost by heart, handed it back to him. "Of course, Mr. Curtiss," I said, "you must decide one thing before we go any farther. Will you try to follow her, even though she expressly forbids it?" He sat with knitted brow and quivering mouth, reading the note word by word. "Yes," he said brokenly, at last. "Yes, I'll try to follow her. I'll do everything I can to find her. I can't live without her!" "But if the marriage be really impossible?" I suggested. "Impossible!" and he turned upon me hotly. "How could it be? What could make it impossible? I tell you, sir, there's nothing on earth can keep us apart." "But this," and I leaned forward and tapped the note. "Yes--that--I can't explain it. At least, the only explanation I can give is that it's a hideous mistake." "A mistake? But Miss Lawrence wasn't an emotional woman?" I questioned. "Not a woman to be carried away by a moment's passion?" "Oh, no! Quite the contrary." "Not a woman who would jump at a conclusion?" I persisted. "Not a woman who would condemn a man unheard--who would overlook the possibility of mistake and be convinced by what we lawyers call circumstantial evidence?" "She was not such a woman at all," he said decidedly. "She was just the opposite of all that." "That makes it more difficult," I pointed out. "I know; I've thought it all out, as well as I'm able--only there's a blank wall I can't get past. Besides, if there's a reason, I have the right to know it."