“Why, what is there in unreadable characters like these to alarm you?”

She forgot her telegram, she forgot everything but that here was a question she must answer in a way to disarm all suspicion.

“The fact,” she accentuated gravely, “that they are unreadable.  What menace may they not contain?  I am afraid of them, as I am of all obscure and mystifying things.”

In a flash, at the utterance of these words, I saw, my way to the fulfillment of the wish which had actuated me from the instant my eyes had fallen on this paper.

“Do you think it a cipher?” I asked.

“A cipher?”

“I have always been good at puzzles.  I wish you would let me see what I can make out of these rows of broken squares and topsy-turvy angles.  Perhaps I can prove to you that they contain nothing to alarm you.”

The gleam of something almost ferocious sprang into this gentle woman’s eyes.  Her lips moved and I expected an angry denial, but fear kept her back.  She did not dare to appear to understand this paper any better than I did.  Besides, she was doubtless conscious that its secret was not one to yield to any mere puzzle-reader.  She could safely trust it to my curiosity.  All this I detected in her changing expression, before she made the slightest gesture which allowed me to secure what I felt to be the most valuable acquisition in the present exigency.

Then she turned to her telegram.  It was from her husband, and I was not prepared for the cry of dismay which left her lips as she read it, nor for the increased excitement into which she was thrown by its few and seemingly simple words.

With apparent forgetfulness of what had just occurred—­a forgetfulness which insensibly carried her back to the moment when she had given me some order which involved my departure from the room—­she impetuously called out over her shoulder which she had turned on opening her telegram: 

“Miss Saunders!  Miss Saunders! are you there?  Bring me the morning papers; bring me the morning papers!”

Instantly I remembered that we had not read the papers.  Contrary to our usual habit we had gone about a pressing piece of work without a glance at any of the three dailies laid to hand in their usual place on the library table.  “They are here on the table,” I replied, wondering as much at the hectic flush which now enlivened her features as at the extreme paleness that had marked them the moment before.

“Search them!  There is something new in them about me.  There must be.  Read Mr. Packard’s message.”

I took it from her hand; only eight words in all.

Here they are—­the marks of separation being mine: 

I am coming—­libel I know—­where is S.
Henry.

“Search the columns,” she repeated, as I laid the telegram down.  “Search!  Search!”