"Nothing of importance," she said, staring mechanically before her, "but it might prove a clue. I contrived--no matter how--to detect Sir Andrew Ffoulkes in the very act of burning a paper at one of these candles, in this very room. That paper I succeeded in holding between my fingers for the space of two minutes, and to cast my eyes on it for that of ten seconds.""Time enough to learn its contents?" asked Chauvelin, quietly.
She nodded. Then continued in the same even, mechanical tone of voice--"In the corner of the paper there was the usual rough device of a small star-shaped flower. Above it I read two lines, everything else was scorched and blackened by the flame.""And what were the two lines?"
Her throat seemed suddenly to have contracted. For an instant she felt that she could not speak the words, which might send a brave man to his death.