HELP! Backup up file vanished!

[J Krugman]

I had been working for about 2 hours on an important e-mail (using
RMAIL), when my machine had to be rebooted.  I had not saved my
work (I know, the oldest mistake in the book), but I was confident
that at least I would be able to find a "backup" file of the form
"#*mail*#...".  To my dismay, there is no such file more recent
than several months ago.  I even did a find command on my home
directory (no luck).

My only hope at this point is that this backup has been placed
somewhere else.  Any suggestions?

My OS is Linux.

Thanks!!!

jill