He got up and hunted about in the
dark for some matches, which at last he found. He struck a light,
standing exactly opposite to the bit of paper with the copy of Sir
James de la Molle's dying message on it. This message was neatly
copied long-ways upon a half-sheet of large writing paper, such as the
Squire generally used. It's first line ran as it was copied:
"/Do not grieve for me, Edward, my son, that I am thus suddenly and
wickedly done./"
Now, as the match burnt up, by some curious chance, connected probably
with the darkness and the sudden striking of light upon his eyeballs,
it came to pass that Harold, happening to glance thereon, was only
able to read four letters of this first line of writing. All the rest
seemed to him but as a blue connecting those four letters. They were:
D...............E...............a...............d
being respectively the initials of the first, the sixth, the eleventh,
and the sixteenth words of the line given above.
The match burnt out, and he began to hunt about for another.
"D-E-A-D," he said aloud, repeating the letters almost automatically.
"Why it spells '/Dead/.' That is rather curious."
Something about this accidental spelling awakened his interest very
sharply--it was an odd coincidence.
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