She drew back with a motion of disgust, but her withdrawal was checked by a sudden discovery: under the glare of Mrs.Peniston's chandelier she had recognized the hand-writing of the letter.

It was a large disjointed hand, with a flourish of masculinity which but slightly disguised its rambling weakness, and the words, scrawled in heavy ink on pale-tinted notepaper, smote on Lily's ear as though she had heard them spoken.
At first she did not grasp the full import of the situation.

She understood only that before her lay a letter written by Bertha Dorset, and addressed, presumably, to Lawrence Selden.

There was no date, but the blackness of the ink proved the writing to be comparatively recent.

The packet in Mrs.Haffen's hand doubtless contained more letters of the same kind--a dozen, Lily conjectured from its thickness.