llowing her, I went into the room, I found her thick fingers
pulling open drawer after drawer of the desk, and turning over the
papers they contained.

"It was here, Mr. Estabrook. Oh, my God! Mr. Estabrook, I saw him put
it here!" she cried.

"What?" I asked, with a glimmer of memory.

"The papers. They was marked for her, but she mustn't ever have 'em! I'd
rather they should pluck me from my bones, sir! And I saw him put 'em
here!"

"He took them out again," I cried, touched by her contagious fear. "He
died with them on the floor beside him. I know what you mean. The blue
seal."

"Yes, the blue seal!" she cried in recognition, and stumbling across the
room she fell upon her knees, reaching under the old easy-chair and the
desk, patting over the rug with her hand, turning up its corners,
searching with her face bent down, like a devotee of some strange sect,
muttering to herself.

"She must never see," she exclaimed monotonously. "Poor child, she must
never see. It is worse than death--a hundred times. Oh, what has he done
with that terrible package!"

Suddenly, throwing herself upward and backward, until the upper half of
her body was erect, and with a small object held up to my astonished
eyes between her forefinger and thumb, she uttered a cry of despair and
rage. She had found a piece of the sealing wax with which the packet,
once offered to my eyes, had been fastened!

"It's too late," she wailed miserably. "Do you see that? The girl has
read it. She would not let me in her room. It's too late!"

There was no keeping back the question.

"What was in it?" I cried. "What was written there?"

I saw her old mouth shut as if she meant to show me that I need expect
no disclosure from her.

"I don't know, Mr. Estabrook," said she.

In her eyes, perhaps distorted by the strong lenses of her glasses, I
saw the challenge of stubbornness. I felt myself growing wild with a
desire to break through the unwholesome mystery which had entangled me,
and overcome by any means the silence of this woman. She had arisen. She
was within my reach. And I believe that I put my hands upon her,
catching her two round and fleshy shoulders under my curved palms,
shaking her to and fro with the excess of my excitement. In that moment
before I spoke to her, she looked up at me, surprise and terror written
on her face.

"Tell me!" I roared. "You know this horrible, hidden thing. Confound
you, tell me!"

Her expression changed