plored every cubic inch of it. There was
the small writing table with one drawer; it held only some
note-paper and a box of pen-points. There was a bureau; to his
certain knowledge it contained no secret whatever. There were a
few giltless chairs, and a white "wash-stand," a mere basin and
slab with exposed plumbing. Lastly, there was the bed, a very
large and ugly "Eastlake" contrivance; he had acquired a close
acquaintance with all of it except the interior of the huge
mattress itself, and here, he finally concluded, must of necessity
be the solution. The surface of the mattress he knew to be
unbroken; nevertheless the book was there. He had recently
stimulated his deductive powers with a narrative of French
journalistic sagacity in a similar case; and he applied French
reasoning. The ledger existed. It was somewhere in the room. He
had searched everything except the interior of the mattress. The
ledger was in that interior.

The exploration thus become necessary presented some difficulties.
Detection in the act would involve explanations hard to invent; it
would not do to say he was looking for his knife; and he could not
think of any excuse altogether free from a flavour of insincerity.
A lameness beset them all and made them liable to suspicion; and
Laura, once suspicious, might be petty enough to destroy the book,
and so put it out of his power forever. He must await the right
opportunity, and, after a racking exercise of patience, at last he
saw it coming.

Doctor Sloane had permitted his patient to come down stairs for an
increasing interval each day. Mr. Madison crept, rather than
walked, leaning upon his wife and closely attended by Miss Peirce.
He spoke with difficulty and not clearly; still, there was a
perceptible improvement, and his family were falling into the
habit of speaking of him as almost well. On that account, Mrs.
Madison urged her daughters to accept an invitation from the
mother of the once courtly Egerton Villard. It was at breakfast
that the matter was discussed.

"Of course Cora must go," Laura began, "but----"

"But nothing!" interrupted Cora. "How would it look if I went and
you didn't? Everybody knows papa's almost well, and they'd think
it silly for us to give up the first real dance since last spring
on that account; yet they're just spiteful enough, if I went and
you stayed home, to call me a `girl of no heart.' Besides," she
added sweetly, "we ought to go to show Mrs. Villard w