A looker-on might have been tempted to wonder how Mrs. Belassis proposed to get at the contents of those locked drawers. Was she going to force the locks? Not at all. Whatever her husband might be, Mrs. Belassis was never clumsy. What she undertook to do, was done neatly, and even artistically. Ladies of some social standing do not usually visit their friends’ houses with skeleton-keys hidden away in their pockets; but it was nothing more nor less than this useful little implement that Mrs. Belassis drew out now; and with the snake-like look more visible than ever in her eyes, she set about her task. Kneeling down upon the floor, she soon had the first drawer open, and had taken from thence the documents it held. There was Phil’s cheque-book first of all, and then a few papers folded and held together by an elastic band. There was a bag, which evidently held some money, and behind all these some papers and relics, which were evidently all that had come to him from the effects of the father and mother. Belassis had taken care that such mementoes should be but few. The cheque-book first claimed Mrs. Belassis’ earnest attention. She studied the counterfoils closely, and then began comparing the sums with the amounts upon the bills she had previously found. Naturally they corresponded accurately enough; but what Mrs. Belassis noticed was this, that for at least six bills (all presents for Maud) which were specified to have been settled ‘by cheque,’ no counterfoil was to be found: and this fact seemed significant of something, though of what she could not yet say. Next the family relics were contemptuously turned over, and put back in their place, and Mrs. Belassis now commenced the study of the papers enclosed by the elastic band. There were but two of them after all, though one was of a bulk and importance that gave it the substance of half a dozen ordinary letters. The crabbed characters were familiar to her eye, and it did not need the colossal signature ‘T. M. Maynard’ to tell her that it had been penned by her late uncle, the former master of Ladywell. It was, in fact, nothing less than the dead man’s letter to his nephew, Philip Debenham, which Tor had read in the little hotel at Hornberg. With a subdued exclamation of curiosity and satisfaction, Mrs. Belassis sat down to read the document; and as she did so, her face assumed an expression not at all agreeable to look upon. She read the paper not once, but twice; and the venomous expression deepened upon her face, until it grew positively hideous in its intensity.