, and rushed from the house. We never saw him again.

"As for her, she fell this time under a paralytic attack which robbed
her of her faculties. She was taken to a hospital, where I frequently
visited her, but either from grief or the effect of her attack she did
not know me, nor did she ever recognise any of us again. Mrs. Latimer,
who is a just woman, sold her furniture and, after paying herself out of
the proceeds, gave the remainder to the hospital nurses for the use of
Mrs. L'Hommedieu, so that when she left them she had something with
which to start life anew. But where she went or how she managed to get
along in her enfeebled condition I do not know. I never heard of her
again."

"Then you did not see the woman who died in these rooms?" I asked.

The effect of these words was magical and led to mutual explanations.
She had not seen that woman, having encountered all the sorrow she
wished to in that room. Nor was there any one else in the house at this
time likely to recognise Mrs. L'Hommedieu, the janitor and hallboy both
being new and Mrs. Latimer one of those proprietors who are only seen on
rent day. For the rest, Mrs. L'Hommedieu's defective memory, which had
led her to haunt the house and room where the bond had once been hidden,
accounted not only for her first visit, but the last, which had ended so
fatally. The cunning she showed in turning her cloak and flinging a veil
over her hat was the cunning of a partially clouded mind. It was a
reminiscence of the morning when her terrible misfortune occurred. My
habit of taking the key out of the lock of that unused door made the use
of her own key possible, and her fear of being followed caused her to
lock the door behind her. My wife, who must have fallen into a doze on
my leaving her, did not see her enter, but detected her just as she was
trying to escape through the folding doors. My presence in the parlour
probably added to her embarrassment, and she fled, turning her cloak as
she did so.

How simple it seemed now that we knew the facts; but how obscure, and,
to all appearance, unexplainable, before the clue was given to the
mystery!

THE THIEF

"And now, if you have all seen the coin and sufficiently admired it, you
may pass it back. I make a point of never leaving it off the shelf for
more than fifteen minutes."

The half dozen or more guests seated about the board of the genial
speaker, glanced casually at each other as though expecting