"No, no, but you may have seen it. Possibly the desk may have been left open, and you, not knowing it from other books, have put it away among those of the library. See, it was filled with writing like this."
Here Mabel took up a pen, and hastily dashed off a line or two on a loose sheet of paper. The woman took the paper, turned it wrong end up, and began to examine it with serious scrutiny, as if she were striving to make out its meaning.
"'Pears like the inside was like this, miss?" she said at last, with another glance at the pale face of her mistress.
Mabel took the paper impatiently from her. "No, like this," she cried, reversing the page. "You should be able to understand the peculiarities of the marks, even though you cannot read."
"Like dis is it—de high marks shootin' up so, and the long one running out scrigly scrawley like dis one; 'pears 's if I'd seen 'em afore, but 'twasn't in a bounden book, golly knows."
"You have seen the writing—very well—where was it?"
"Up in Master James' room, the day he went off. Them's the same marks, Lor' knows."
"In Mr. James Harrington's room!" exclaimed Mabel, white as snow.
"Please, missus, tell jus' what the book was outside and in."
Mabel held up the sheet of paper on which she had written, but it trembled like a plucked leaf in her hand.