“I want you to concentrate your mind upon what I have to say to you. Do you think you can do this?” “I will try,” replied the poor woman with a backward glance at the door which had just been closed upon her. “What we want,” said she, “is, as I stated before, an insight into the workings of your brain at the time you took the will from the safe. Try and follow what I have to say, Mrs. Quintard. Dreams are no longer regarded by scientists as prophecies of the future or even as spontaneous and irrelevant conditions of thought, but as reflections of a near past, which can almost without exception be traced back to the occurrences which caused them. Your action with the will had its birth in some previous line of thought afterwards forgotten. Let us try and find that thought. Recall, if you can, just what you did or read yesterday.” Mrs. Quintard looked frightened. “But, I have no memory,” she objected. “I forget quickly, so quickly that in order to fulfill my engagements I have to keep a memorandum of every day’s events. Yesterday? yesterday? What did I do yesterday? I went downtown for one thing, but I hardly know where.” “Perhaps your memorandum of yesterday’s doings will help you.” “I will get it. But it won’t give you the least help. I keep it only for my own eye, and--” “Never mind; let me see it.” And she waited impatiently for it to be put in her hands. But when she came to read the record of the last two days, this was all she found: Saturday: Mauretania nearly due. I must let Mr. Delahunt know today that he’s wanted here to-morrow. Hetty will try on my dresses. Says she has to alter them. Mrs. Peabody came to lunch, and we in such trouble! Had to go down street. Errand for Clement. The will, the will! I think of nothing else. Is it safe where it is? No peace of mind till to-morrow. Clement better this afternoon. Says he must live till Carlos gets back; not to triumph over him, but to do what he can to lessen his disappointment. My good Clement! So nervous, I went to pasting photographs, and was forgetting all my troubles when Hetty brought in another dress to try on. Quiet in the great house, during which the clock on the staircase sent forth seven musical peals. To Violet waiting alone in the library, they acted as a summons. She was just leaving the room, when the sound of hubbub in the hall below held her motionless in the doorway. An automobile had stopped in front, and several persons were entering the house, in a gay and unseemly fashion. As she stood listening, uncertain of her duty, she perceived the frenzied figure of Mrs. Quintard approaching. As she passed by, she dropped one word: “Carlos!” Then she went staggering on, to disappear a moment later down the stairway.