Of course I found just what I had expected--1748, not 1747--at the top of the page, and was about to replace the register, when the thought occurred to me that, if the dream had been potent enough to bring me hither, it might yet mean something. I lifted the cover again. There the entry stood undeniably plain. This time, however, I noted two other little facts concerning it. I will just remind my reader that the entry was crushed in between the date of the year and the next entry--plainly enough to the eye; and that there was no attestation to the entries of 1747. The first additional fact--and clearly an important one--was that, in the summing up of 1748, before the signature, which stood near the bottom of the cover, a figure had been altered. Originally it stood: ‘In all six couple,’ but the six had been altered to a seven--corresponding with the actual number. This appeared proof positive that the first entry on the cover was a forged insertion. And how clumsily it had been managed! ‘What could my grannie be about?’ I said to myself. It never occurred to me then that it might have been intended to _look like_ a forgery. Still I kept staring at it, as if by very force of staring I could find out something. There was not the slightest sign of erasure or alteration beyond the instance I have mentioned. Yet--and here was my second note--when I compared the whole of the writing on the cover with the writing on the preceding page, though it seemed the same hand, it seemed to have got stiffer and shakier, as if the writer had grown old between. Finding nothing very suggestive in this, however, I fell into a dreamy mood, watching the red light, as it faded, up in the old, dark, distorted roof of the desolate church--with my hand lying on the book. I have always had a bad habit of pulling and scratching at any knot or roughness in the paper of the book I happen to be reading; and now, almost unconsciously, with my forefinger I was pulling at an edge of parchment which projected from the joint of the cover. When I came to myself and proceeded to close the book, I found it would not shut properly because of a piece which I had curled up. Seeking to restore it to its former position, I fancied I saw a line or edge running all down the joint, and looking closer, saw that these last entries, in place of being upon a leaf of the book pasted to the cover in order to strengthen the binding, as I had supposed, were indeed upon a leaf which was pasted to the cover, but one which was not otherwise connected with the volume.