"Has anything new occurred, Johanna, to produce this feeling?"
"Yes, sir. The dog, that my heart tells me belonged to poor Mark, has been over here, and with a rare instinct he found a piece of apparel, in the pocket of which was this paper. It is in his writing. I know it too—too well to be denied. Ah, sir, you, even you, will no longer now seek to delude me with false hopes. But do not tarry here, sir; Todd has been long gone, and may at any chance moment come back again."
"Be at rest upon that point, Johanna. He cannot come back without my being made aware of it by my friends without. But tell me in what way you attach such serious importance to this piece of paper, Johanna?"
"In what way, my dear friend? Do I not say that it is in poor Mark's own handwriting? How could it come here unless he brought it? Oh, sir, do not ask me in what way I attach importance to it. Rather let me ask you how, otherwise than upon the supposition of his having become one of Todd's victims, can you account for its being here at all?"
"Really," said Sir Richard, "this Mark Ingestrie must have been a very forgetful young man."
"Forgetful?"
"Yes. It seems that it was necessary for him to carry your name and address in his pocket. Now if he had given such a slip of paper as this to another person for fear he should forget what was not so deeply imprinted in his memory I should not have wondered at it for a moment."
Johanna clasped her hands and looked the magistrate in the face, as she said—
"Then, sir, you think—that is, you believe—that—that this is no proof of poor Mark having been here?"
"As I hope for mercy in Heaven, it is to my mind a proof the other way, Johanna."