one away as I came, clueless, had I not
attempted to straighten a pile of books, dangerously sagging--like my
chin!--and threatening a fall. My effort was rewarded by a veritable
Niagara of books. They poured over the edge, a few first, then more,
until I stood, it seemed, knee-deep in a raging sea of atheism.

Somewhat grimly I set to work to repair the damage, and one by one I
picked them up and restored them. I put them in methodically this time,
glancing at each title to place the volume upright. Suddenly, out of
the darkness of unbelief, a title caught my eye and held it, "The
Handwriting of God." I knew the book. It had fallen into bad company,
but its theology was unimpeachable. It did not belong. It--

I opened it. The Reverend Samuel Thaddeus had written his own name in
it, in the cramped hand I had grown to know. Evidently its presence
there was accidental. I turned it over in my hands, and saw that it was
closed down on something, on several things, indeed. They proved to be a
small black note-book, a pair of spectacles, a woman's handkerchief.

I stood there looking at them. They might mean nothing but the
accidental closing of a book, which was mistakenly placed in bad
company, perhaps by Mrs. Graves. I was inclined to doubt her knowledge
of religious literature. Or they might mean something more, something I
had feared to find.

Armed with the volume, and the lemon forgotten--where the cook found it
the next day and made much of the mystery--I went upstairs again.

Viewed in a strong light, the three articles took on real significance.
The spectacles I fancied were Miss Emily's. They were, to all
appearances, the duplicates of those on her tidy bedside stand. But the
handkerchief was not hers. Even without the scent, which had left it,
but clung obstinately to the pages of the book, I knew it was not hers.
It was florid, embroidered, and cheap. And held close to the light, I
made out a laundry-mark in ink on the border. The name was either Wright
or Knight.

The note-book was an old one, and covered a period of almost twenty
years. It contained dates and cash entries. The entries were nearly all
in the Reverend Samuel Thaddeus's hand, but after the date of his death
they had been continued in Miss Emily's writing. They varied little,
save that the amounts gradually increased toward the end, and the dates
were further apart. Thus, in 1898 there were six entries, aggregating
five hundred dollars. In 19