So little did she care that during the next few minutes of acute attention I distinguished the flinging down of article after article on to the floor, as well as many other movements betraying haste or irritation. Suddenly I heard her give a bound, then the sound of a heavy lid falling and then, after a minute or two of complete silence, the soft pat-pat of her slippered feet descending the stair. Half-past three. Waiting till she was well down the second flight, I pushed my door ajar and, flying down the hall, peered over the balustrade in time to see her entering her room. She held a lighted candle in her hand and by its small flame I caught a full glimpse of her figure. To my astonishment and even to my dismay she was still in the gown she had refused to have me unlace,--a rich yellow satin in which she must have shone resplendent a few hours before. She had not even removed the jewels from her neck. Whatever had occupied her, whatever had taken her hither and thither through the house, moving furniture out of her way, lifting heavy boxes, opening dust-covered trunks, had been of such moment to her as to make her entirely oblivious of the rich and delicate apparel she thus wantonly sacrificed. But it was not this alone which attracted my attention. In her hand she held a paper, and the sight of that paper and the way she clutched it rather disturbed my late conclusions. Had her errand been one of search rather than of arrangement? and was this crumpled letter the sole result of a half-hour’s ransacking in an attic room at the dead of night? I was fain to think so, for in the course of another half-hour her light went out. Relieved that she had not left the house, I was still anxious as to the cause of her strange conduct. Mayor Packard did not come in till daybreak. He found me waiting for him in the lower hall. “Well?” he eagerly inquired. “Mrs. Packard is asleep, I hope. A shrill laugh, ringing through the house shortly after her return, gave her a nervous shock and she begged that she might be left undisturbed till morning.” He turned from hanging up his overcoat, and gave me a short stare. “A laugh!” he repeated. “Who could have laughed like that? We are not a very jolly crowd here.” “I don’t know, sir. I thought it must have been either Mr. Steele or Nixon, the butler, but each denied it. There was no one else in this part of the house.” “Mrs. Packard is very sensitive just now,” he remarked. Then as he turned away toward the library door: “I will throw myself on a lounge. I have but an hour or two before me, as I have my preparations to make for leaving town on the early morning train. I shall have some final instructions to give you.” CHAPTER VIII. THE PARAGRAPH