Tom turned to look at his friend and the physician. He saw that they were in close conversation, and Mr. Somerset had actually produced the black-edged letter! The doctor was carefully examining it under a lamp. He handed it back with a few emphatic words, which Mr. Somerset received with a gesture of surprise and interrogation. Then they both looked at it together, the doctor pointing to details in the superscription, Mr. Somerset eagerly following his words, and alternately watching his finger and looking into his face. Finally, he re-took the letter, and both gentlemen shook their heads, the doctor extending both his hands as though to say that his words opened wide issues. Then, as Mrs. Grant’s train was just starting, they hastily shook hands, and Mr. Somerset hastened back to give the good lady his parting words as she went off. “Tom,” said Mr. Somerset, grasping the lad’s arm as they re-entered the cab, which Mr. Somerset had retained to drive them back to Pelham Street, “Dr. Ivery is truly concerned about the news I gave him. He has much admiration for Mrs. Challoner’s pluck and determination. Then I thought I would tell him about the little worry of these letters; and, Tom, he has a most startling theory on the subject—indeed, it is no theory, he regards it as a scientific fact.” “What is it?” Tom asked eagerly. “He says these letters are written by some demented person; that such things are a well known phase of mental failure; that the very caligraphy is characteristic, the way the letters and lines run into each other, the bad spelling—everything!” “I don’t see that the doctor’s opinion helps us much,” remarked Tom, almost irritably. “Who is the lunatic? and why is the lunatic concerned with our household?” “Those questions remain unanswered,” said Mr. Somerset. “There is no need to ask ‘why’ where lunacy is concerned. It is precisely without reason that it acts, and there is little organic unity in its actions.” They found Miss Latimer sitting alone in the parlour. Lucy had retired. “Sorrow is sometimes sleepy,” said Miss Latimer, “and it is God’s medicine when it is.” But Lucy had left behind kind “good nights” for Mr. Somerset and Tom, and exhortations that the former was not to think of going home without having his supper. It was a dreary little meal. While Clementina set or removed the dishes, they did not check their conversation about the general position. “If these strange freaks be really the work of a lunatic,” said Mr. Somerset, “of course the poor creature cannot be blamed; but none the less we must try that he or she be in some way restrained, as soon as discovered, for nobody knows what they may do next.” “Those that get called mad are sometimes not so mad as folks think, sir,” Clementina put in, in her civil, sad way. “It’s strange to discover that we seem to know as little of what is going on beside us, as we do of what is happening to Mr. Challoner at the other side of the world,” remarked Tom.