“Where is his room and where is hers?”

“Hers is in front on this same floor.  Mr. Brooks’s is in the rear, and can be reached either by the hall or by passing through this room into a small one beyond, which we called his den..”

“Describe your encounter.  Where were you standing when you saw her first?”

“In the den I have just mentioned.  There was a bright light in the hall behind me and I could see her figure quite plainly.  She was holding a folded paper clenched against her breast, and her movement was so mechanical that I was sure she was asleep.  She was coming this way, and in another moment she entered this room.  The door, which had been open, remained so, and in my anxiety I crept to it and looked in after her.  There was no light burning here at that hour, but the moon was shining in in long rays of variously coloured light.  If I had followed her—­but I did not.  I just stood and watched her long enough to see her pass through a blue ray, then through a green one, and then into, if not through, a red one.  Expecting her to walk straight on, and having some fears of the staircase once she got into the hall, I hurried around to the door behind you there to head her off.  But she had not yet left this room.  I waited and waited and still she did not come.  Fearing some accident, I finally ventured to approach the door and try it.  It was locked.  This alarmed me.  She had never locked herself in anywhere before and I did not know what to make of it.  Some persons would have shouted her name, but I had been warned against doing that, so I simply stood where I was, and eventually I heard the key turn in the lock and saw her come out.  She was still walking stiffly, but her hands were empty and hanging at her side.”

“And then?”

“She went straight to her room and I after her.  I was sure she was dead asleep by this time.”

“And she was?”

“Yes, Miss; but still full of what was on her mind.  I know this because she stopped when she reached the bedside and began fumbling with the waist of her wrapper.  It was for the key she was searching, and when her fingers encountered it hanging on the outside, she opened her wrapper and thrust it in on her bare skin.”

“You saw her do all that?”

“As plainly as I see you now.  The light in her room was burning brightly.”

“And after that?”

“She got into bed.  It was I who turned off the light.”

“Has that wrapper of hers a pocket?”

“No, Miss.”

“Nor her gown?”

“No, Miss.”

“So she could not have brought the paper into her room concealed about her person?”

“No, Miss; she left it here.  It never passed beyond this doorway.”

“But might she not have carried it back to some place of concealment in the rooms she had left?”

The woman’s face changed and a slight flush showed through the natural brown of her cheeks.