the reviews some months ago,' he
began again, with the air of a man who changes the subject. 'It was
written by a doctor--Dr. Coryn, I think, was the name. He says that a
lady, watching her little girl playing at the drawing-room window,
suddenly saw the heavy sash give way and fall on the child's fingers.
The lady fainted, I think, but at any rate the doctor was summoned, and
when he had dressed the child's wounded and maimed fingers he was
summoned to the mother. She was groaning with pain, and it was found
that three fingers of her hand, corresponding with those that had been
injured on the child's hand, were swollen and inflamed, and later, in
the doctor's language, purulent sloughing set in.'

Ambrose still handled delicately the green volume.

'Well, here it is,' he said at last, parting with difficulty, it seemed,
from his treasure.

'You will bring it back as soon as you have read it,' he said, as they
went out into the hall, into the old garden, faint with the odour of
white lilies.

There was a broad red band in the east as Cotgrave turned to go, and
from the high ground where he stood he saw that awful spectacle of
London in a dream.

THE GREEN BOOK

The morocco binding of the book was faded, and the colour had grown
faint, but there were no stains nor bruises nor marks of usage. The book
looked as if it had been bought 'on a visit to London' some seventy or
eighty years ago, and had somehow been forgotten and suffered to lie
away out of sight. There was an old, delicate, lingering odour about it,
such an odour as sometimes haunts an ancient piece of furniture for a
century or more. The end-papers, inside the binding, were oddly
decorated with coloured patterns and faded gold. It looked small, but
the paper was fine, and there were many leaves, closely covered with
minute, painfully formed characters.

I found this book (the manuscript began) in a drawer in the old bureau
that stands on the landing. It was a very rainy day and I could not go
out, so in the afternoon I got a candle and rummaged in the bureau.
Nearly all the drawers were full of old dresses, but one of the small
ones looked empty, and I found this book hidden right at the back. I
wanted a book like this, so I took it to write in. It is full of
secrets. I have a great many other books of secrets I have written,
hidden in a safe place, and I am going to write here many of the old
secrets and some new ones; but there are some I shall no