It was a copy of _Notes and Queries_.

She opened it.
It was a small periodical magazine made up of printed questions which contributors sent in search of information and answers to those questions from the pens of other contributors.

Mrs.Pettifer glanced through the leaves, hoping to light upon the page which her husband had been studying.

But he had closed the book when he laid it down and she found nothing to justify his remark.

Yet he had not spoken without intention.
Of that she was convinced, and her conviction was strengthened the next moment, for as she turned again towards the drawing-room Robert Pettifer looked once sharply towards her and as sharply away.