facts on which you found your suspicions, and which
lead you to put these questions to me?"

Thereupon Mr. Gridley proceeded to state succinctly the singular
behavior of Murray Bradshaw in taking one paper from a number handed to
him by Mr. Penhallow, and concealing it in a volume. He related how he
was just on the point of taking out the volume which contained the
paper, when Mr. Bradshaw entered and disconcerted him. He had, however,
noticed three spots on the paper by which he should know it anywhere. He
then repeated the substance of Kitty Fagan's story, accenting the fact
that she too noticed three remarkable spots on the paper which Mr.
Bradshaw had pointed out to Miss Badlam as the one so important to both
of them. Here he rested the case for the moment.

Mr. Penhallow looked thoughtful. There was something questionable in the
aspect of this business. It did obviously suggest the idea of an
underhand arrangement with Miss Cynthia, possibly involving some very
grave consequences. It would have been most desirable, he said, to have
ascertained what these papers, or rather this particular paper, to which
so much importance was attached, amounted to. Without that knowledge
there was nothing, after all, which it might not be possible to explain.
He might have laid aside the spotted paper to examine for some object of
mere curiosity. It was certainly odd that the one the Fagan woman had
seen should present three spots so like those on the other paper, but
people did sometimes throw _treys_ at backgammon, and that which not
rarely happened with two dice of six faces _might_ happen if they had
sixty or six hundred faces. On the whole, he did not see that there was
any ground, so far, for anything more than a vague suspicion. He
thought it not unlikely that Mr. Bradshaw was a little smitten with the
young lady up at The Poplars, and that he had made some diplomatic
overtures to the duenna, after the approved method of suitors. She was
young for Bradshaw,--very young,--but he knew his own affairs. If he
chose to make love to a child, it was natural enough that he should
begin by courting her nurse.

Master Byles Gridley lost himself for half a minute in a most
discreditable inward discussion as to whether Laura Penhallow was
probably one or two years older than Mr. Bradshaw. That was his way,--he
could not help it. He could not think of anything without these mental
parentheses. But he came back to business at the end o