possibility that she might appear at Porthgenna,
and although the housekeeper had been
written to by Rosamond under the influence
of that idea, neither she nor her husband
were quite prepared for such a speedy
confirmation of their suspicions as they had now
received. Their astonishment, however, on
first ascertaining the general purport of the
letter, was as nothing compared with their
astonishment when they came to those
particular passages in it which referred to Uncle
Joseph. The fresh element of complication
imparted to the thickening mystery of
Mrs. Jazeph and the Myrtle Room, by the
entrance of the foreign stranger on the
scene, and by his intimate connection with
the extraordinary proceedings that had
taken place in the house, fairly baffled them
all. The letter was read again and again;
was critically dissected paragraph by
paragraph; was carefully annotated by the doctor,
for the purpose of extricating all the facts
that it contained from the mass of unmeaning
words in which Mr. Munder had artfully
and lengthily involved them; and was finally
pronounced, after all the pains that had been
taken to render it intelligible, to be the most
mysterious and bewildering document that
mortal pen had ever produced.

The first practical suggestion, after the
letter had been laid aside in despair, emanated
from Rosamond. She proposed that her
husband and herself (the baby included, as
a matter of course), should start at once for
Porthgenna, to question the servants
minutely about the proceedings of Mrs. Jazeph
and the foreign stranger who had accompanied
her, and to examine the premises on the
north side of the house, with a view to
discovering a clue to the locality of the Myrtle
Room, while events were still fresh in the
memories of witnesses. The plan thus
advocated, however excellent in itself, was opposed
by Mr. Orridge on medical grounds. Mrs.
Frankland had caught cold by exposing
herself too carelessly to the air, on first leaving
her room, and the doctor refused to grant her
permission to travel for at least a week to
come, if not for a longer period.

The next proposal came from Mr.
Frankland. He declared it to be
perfectly clear to his mind, that the only
chance of penetrating the mystery of the
Myrtle Room, rested entirely on the discovery
of some means of communicating with Mrs.
Jazeph. He suggested that they should not
trouble themselves to think of anything
unconnected with the accomplishment of this
purpose; and he proposed that the servant
then in attendance on him at West Winston
—a man who had been in his employment for
many years, and whose zeal, activity, and
intelligence could be thoroughly depended on
—should be sent to Porthgenna forthwith, to
start the necessary inquiries, and to examine
the premises carefully on the north side of
the house.

This advice was immediately acted on. At
an hour's notice, the servant started for Cornwall,
thoroughly instructed as to what he was
to do, and well supplied with money, in case
he found it necessary to employ many persons
in making the proposed inquiries. In due
course of time he sent a report of his
proceedings to his master. It proved to be of a
most discouraging nature.

All trace of Mrs. Jazeph and her companion
had been lost at the post-town of
Porthgenna. Investigations had been made in
every direction, but no reliable information
had been obtained. People in totally
different parts of the country declared readily
enough that they had seen two persons
answering to the description of the lady in
the dark dress and the old foreigner; but
when they were called upon to state the
direction in which the two strangers were
travelling, the answers received turned out
to be of the most puzzling and contradictory
kind. No pains had been spared, no necessary
expenditure of money had been grudged;
but, so far, no results of the slightest value
had been obtained. Whether the lady and
the foreigner had gone east, west, north,
or south, was more than Mr. Frankland's
servant, at the present stage of the proceedings,
could take it on himself to say.

The report of the examination of the north
rooms was not more satisfactory. Here,
again, nothing of any importance could be
discovered. The servant had ascertained
that there were twenty-two rooms on the
uninhabited side of the house:—six on the
ground floor opening into the deserted
garden: eight on the first floor; and eight
above that, on the second story. He had
examined all the doors carefully from top
to bottom, and had come to the conclusion
that none of them had been opened. The
evidence afforded by the lady's own actions
led to nothing. She had, if the testimony
of the servant could be trusted, dropped
the keys on the floor of the hall. She was
found, as the housekeeper and the steward
asserted, lying, in a fainting condition, at the
top of the landing of the first flight of stairs.
The door opposite to her, in this position,
showed no more traces of having been
recently opened than any of the other doors of
the other twenty-one rooms. Whether the
room to which she wished to gain access
was one of the eight on the first floor, or
whether she had fainted on her way up to the
higher range of eight rooms on the second
floor, it. was impossible to determine. The
only conclusions that could be fairly drawn
from the events that had taken place in the
house, were two in number. First, it might
be taken for granted, that the lady had been
disturbed before she had been able to use the
keys to gain admission to the Myrtle Room.
Secondly, it might be assumed from the
position in which she was found on the stairs
and from the evidence relating to the dropping