Looking at her: but I could detect no emotion on her face; no drooping of the eye; no rise or fall of colour, such as one guilty would have been likely to display. She appeared to take my question literally, and to see nothing beyond it.
"I cannot tell anything about it, Mr. Strange. Had my dress been covered with parchments, I was in too much terror to notice them. Your clerks would be more able to answer you than I, for they had to assist me down to my carriage. But how should a parchment become attached to a lady's dress?" she added, shaking out the folds of her ample skirts. "The crape is quite soft, you perceive. Touch it."
"Quite so," I assented, advancing for a half-moment the extreme tip of my forefinger.
"You will take a glass of wine? Now don't say no. Why can't you be sociable?"
"Not any wine, thank you," I answered with a laugh. "We lawyers have to keep our heads clear, Lady Clavering: we should not do that if we took wine in the daytime."
"Sit still, pray. You have scarcely been here five minutes. I want to speak to you, too, upon a matter of business."
So I resumed my seat, and waited. She was looking at me very earnestly.
"It is about those missing letters of mine. Have you searched for them, Mr. Strange?"
"Partially. I do not think we hold any. There are none amongst the Clavering papers."
"Why do you say 'partially'?" she questioned.