"Yes. You."
"But you must be dreaming, Mrs. Gass."
"I never do dream--that sort of dreaming," replied Mrs. Gass. "Look here"--putting her stout hand, covered with costly rings, on his coat-sleeve--"didn't you upset your pocketbook here that night? Well, this piece of paper fell out of it."
"It could not have done anything of the sort," he repeated, getting flushed and angry again. "All the papers that fell out of my pocketbook I picked up and returned to it."
"You didn't pick this up; it must have fluttered away unseen. Just after you were gone I dropped my spectacle-case, and in stooping for it, I saw this piece of paper lying under the claw of the table."
"But it could not have come out of my pocketbook. Just tell me, if you please, Mrs. Gass, what should bring such a document in my possession?"
"That's just what I can't tell. The paper was not there before candle-light; I'll answer for that much; so where else could it have come from?"
The last words were not spoken as an assertion of her view, but as a question. Dr. Rane looked at her, she at him; both seeming equally puzzled.
"Had you any visitor last evening besides myself?" he asked.
"Not a soul. The only person that came into the parlour, barring my own servants, was Molly Green, under-housemaid at the Hall. She lived with me once, and calls in sometimes in passing to ask how I am. They sent her into Dallory for something wanted at the chemist's, and she looked in to tell me. The thing had just happened."