"From a woman who loved him years ago." And he turned to the seventh and last of those poor ghosts-the seventh, a fateful number.
He spread it before him; frowned down on it a moment with a sharp hiss of indrawn breath.

Then he twisted oddly on his chair, and sat bolt upright, staring straight before him with unseeing eyes.

Presently he passed a hand across his brow, and made a queer sound in his throat.
"What is it ?" she asked.
But he did not answer; he was staring at the paper again.

A while he sat thus; then with swift fevered fingers he took up once more the other letters.

He unfolded one, and began to read.