g nature of the look
with which the mayor now turned on his wife, I followed the secretary's
example and left them to enjoy their few last words alone.

Verily the pendulum of events swung wide and fast in this house.

This conclusion was brought back to me with fresh insistence a few
minutes later, when, on hearing the front door shut, I stepped to the
balustrade and looked over to see if Mrs. Packard was coming up. She
was not, for I saw her go into the library; but plainly on the marble
pavement below, just where we had all been standing, in fact, I
perceived the piece of paper she had brought with her from the
dining-room and had doubtless dropped in the course of the foregoing
conversation.

Running down in great haste, I picked it up. This scrap of I knew not
what, but which had been the occasion of the enigmatic scene I had
witnessed at the breakfast-table, necessarily interested me very much
and I could not help giving it a look. I saw that it was inscribed with
Hebraic-looking characters as unlike as possible to the scrawl of a
little child.

With no means of knowing whether they were legible or not, these
characters made a surprising impression upon me, one, indeed, that was
almost photographic.

I also noted that these shapes or characters, of which there were just
seven, were written on the face of an empty envelope. This decided any
doubts I may have had as to its identity with the paper she had brought
down from the attic. That had been a square sheet, which even if folded
would fail to enter this long and narrow envelope. The interest which
I had felt when I thought the two identical was a false interest. Yet
I could not but believe that this scrap had a value of its own equal to
the one with which, under this misapprehension, I had invested it.

Carrying it back to Mrs. Packard, I handed it over with the remark that
I had found it lying in the hall. She cast a quick look at it, gave me
another look and tossed the paper into the grate. As it caught fire and
flared up, the characters started vividly into view.

This second glimpse of them, added to the one already given me, fixed
the whole indelibly in my mind. This is the way they looked.

[]; V; [];.>; V; [-]; <;

While I watched these cabalistic marks pass from red to black and
finally vanish in a wild leap up the chimney, Mrs. Packard remarked:

"I wish I could destroy the memory of all my mistakes as completely as I
can that old envelo