An old envelope marked the place where appeared an article on the
coincidences common to the diagnostics of a certain type of low fever and
the diagnostics of a certain class of poisons. Here the volume again
opened of itself, and a blot of ink on the page seemed to indicate that
the open book had been leant upon by a person engaged in making memoranda
of its contents. Nor was this all. The forgotten envelope that marked the
place had its own dismal significance. The postmark bore the date of the
year and the month in which Charlotte's father had died.
While this volume was still open in his hand the door opened suddenly,
and Mrs. Woolper came into the room.
She had kept Valentine waiting more than half an hour. He had little more
than half an hour at most in which to break the ice of absolute
strangeness, and sound the very depths of this woman's character. If she
had come to him earlier, when his plan of action was clear and definite,
his imagination in abeyance, he would have gone cautiously to work, with
slowness and deliberation. Coming to him now, when his mind, unsettled by
the discovery of fresh evidence against Philip Sheldon, was divided
between the past and the present, she took him off his guard, and he
plunged at once into the subject that absorbed all his thoughts.
Mrs. Woolper looked from Valentine to the open books on the table with a
vague terror in her face.
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