third day Emily was absent.

Was she ill?

She was at the library in the City, consulting the file of _The Times_
for the year 1877.

CHAPTER XXIV. MR. ROOK.

Emily's first day in the City library proved to be a day wasted.

She began reading the back numbers of the newspaper at haphazard,
without any definite idea of what she was looking for. Conscious of the
error into which her own impatience had led her, she was at a loss
how to retrace the false step that she had taken. But two alternatives
presented themselves: either to abandon the hope of making any
discovery--or to attempt to penetrate Alban 's motives by means of pure
guesswork, pursued in the dark.

How was the problem to be solved? This serious question troubled her all
through the evening, and kept her awake when she went to bed. In despair
of her capacity to remove the obstacle that stood in her way, she
decided on resuming her regular work at the Museum--turned her pillow to
get at the cool side of it--and made up her mind to go asleep.

In the case of the wiser animals, the Person submits to Sleep. It is
only the superior human being who tries the hopeless experiment of
making Sleep submit to the Person. Wakeful on the warm side of the
pillow, Emily remained wakeful on the cool side--thinking again and
again of the interview with Alban which had ended so strangely.

Little by little, her mind passed the limits which had restrained it
thus far. Alban's conduct in keeping his secret, in the matter of
the newspapers, now began to associate itself with Alban's conduct in
keeping that other secret, which concealed from her his suspicions of
Mrs. Rook.

She started up in bed as the next possibility occurred to her.

In speaking of the disaster which had compelled Mr. and Mrs. Rook to
close the inn, Cecilia had alluded to an inquest held on the body of the
murdered man. Had the inquest been mentioned in the newspapers, at the
time? And had Alban seen something in the report, which concerned Mrs.
Rook?

Led by the new light that had fallen on her, Emily returned to the
library the next morning with a definite idea of what she had to look
for. Incapable of giving exact dates, Cecilia had informed her that the
crime was committed "in the autumn." The month to choose, in beginning
her examination, was therefore the month of August.

No discovery rewarded her. She tried September, next--with the same
unsatisfactory results. On Monday the first o