"No, no--nothing like it. I know you _could_ never guess. Therefore it
would not be fair to keep you trying. A great iron horseshoe. The old woman
of ninety years had in the pocket of the dress that she was wearing at the
very moment when she died, for her death was sudden, an iron horseshoe."
"What did it mean? Could her daughter explain it?"
"That she proceeded at once to do. 'Do you remember, sir,' she said,
'how that horseshoe used to hang on a nail over the chimneypiece?' 'I do
remember having observed it there,' I answered; 'for once when I took
notice of it, I said to your mother, laughing, "I hope you are not afraid
of witches, Mrs. Aylmer?" And she looked a little offended, and assured me
to the contrary.' 'Well,' her daughter went on, 'about three months ago, I
missed it. My mother would not tell me anything about it. And here it is!
I can hardly think she can have carried it about all that time without me
finding it out, but I don't know. Here it is, anyhow. Perhaps when she felt
death drawing nearer, she took it from somewhere where she had hidden it,
and put it in her pocket. If I had found it in time, I would have put it
in her coffin.
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