And the girl! Her first words on coming to herself were: 'You have left that line of writing behind.' Mr.Gryce, those words, few and inexplicable as they are, contain the key to the whole situation.

Will you repeat them again, if you please, sentence by sentence ?" "With pleasure, madam; I have said them often enough to myself.

First, then: 'I return your daughter to you!'" "So! Mr.Adams had some one's daughter in charge whom he returns.

Whose daughter?
Not that young man's daughter, certainly, for that would necessitate her being a small child.

Besides, if these words had been meant for his assailant, why make so remarkable an effort to hide them from him ?" "Very true! I have said the same thing to myself." "Yet, if not for him, for whom, then?
For the old gentleman who came in later ?" "It is possible; since hearing of him I have allowed myself to regard this as among the possibilities, especially as the next words of this strange communication are: 'She is here.' Now the only woman who was there a few minutes previous to this old gentleman's visit was the light-haired girl whom you saw carried out." "Very true; but why do you reason as if this paper had just been written?
It might have been an old scrap, referring to past sorrows or secrets." "These words were written that afternoon.