Truth to tell, the twins were almost as anxious as she for a solution of the mystery. The sudden introduction of this new element into their hitherto wholly athletic and unimaginative existences, they found, to their surprise, even more diverting than the most exciting tennis-match or basket-ball struggle. About a week after Corinne's first visit, all three burst in breathlessly upon Margaret, one cold afternoon, and transported her to the seventh heaven of delight with this exciting news: "Corinne's got it, at last! Haven't you, Corinne!
"Yes," she admitted, giving Margaret a big hug of greeting, "I think I've puzzled out most of the letters now, and I've even worked out a few of the first sentences—"
"Yes, and she says they're awfully strange!" interrupted the twins, in chorus. "And she wouldn't tell us a word, though we begged her hard!"
"Well, Miss President," laughed Corinne, "it seemed to me that this was a thing to be revealed only in a solemn meeting of the club and in your presence. Was I right?"
"Indeed you were!" declared Margaret. "Don't you ever tell them a thing before you've told me, will you?"
"I won't!" promised Corinne. "It shall be the first rule of our society,—no discoveries told to ordinary members before the president hears them! And now let's get to business!" They all drew up before the cozy open fire.
"Oh, isn't this lovely!" sighed Corinne. She opened the old account-book and placed beside it a paper on which she had written the letters of the alphabet, and next to each the sign that appeared to stand for it.
"I had the worst time puzzling this out!" she said. "I worked and worked over it and changed them all around nearly forty times before I struck anything that seemed just right. But now I guess we've got it, at last! I'm sure 'a' is this perpendicular straight line, 'b' the rectangle with the bottom missing, 'c' the horizontal parallels—and so on. Now, as I've said, I've made out the first few sentences and they seem awfully strange! Here they are." She turned the paper over and read:
"'This is a house of mystery, and strange, unaccountable dread. I feel daily that something menaces me—that my life is not safe.'" A delicious shudder ran through the listening group.