another, from the mutton broth to the toasted
cheese.

The next two days passed as usual. On the
third day, an event happened. In appearance, it
was nothing more important than a ring at the
drawing-room bell. In reality, it was the
forerunner of approaching catastrophe— the
formidable herald of the end.

It was Magdalen's business to answer the bell.
On reaching the drawing-room door, she knocked
as usual. There was no reply. After again
knocking, and again receiving no answer, she
ventured into the room— and was instantly met
by a current of cold air flowing full on her face.
The heavy sliding-door in the opposite wall was
pushed back; and the Arctic atmosphere of
Freeze-your-Bones was pouring unhindered into
the empty room.

She waited, near the door, doubtful what to do
next; it was certainly the drawing-room bell
that had rung, and no other. She waited, looking
through the open doorway opposite, down
the wilderness of the dismantled Hall.

A little consideration satisfied her that it would
be best to go down stairs again, and wait there
for a second summons from the bell. On turning
to leave the room, she happened to look back
once more; and, exactly at that moment, she
saw the door open at the opposite extremity of
the Banqueting-Hall— the door leading into the
first of the apartments in the east wing. A tall
man came out, wearing his great-coat and his
hat, and rapidly approached the drawing-room.
His gait betrayed him, while he was still too far
off for his features to be seen. Before he was
half way across the Hall, Magdalen had
recognised—Admiral Bartram.

The admiral looked, not irritated only, but
surprised as well, at finding his parlour-maid
waiting for him in the drawing-room. He inquired,
sharply and suspiciously, what she wanted
there? Magdalen replied that she had come
there to answer the bell. His face cleared a
little, when he heard the explanation. " Yes,
yes; to be sure," he said. " I did ring, and then
I forgot it." He pulled the sliding-door back
into its place, as he spoke. " Coals," he resumed,
impatiently, pointing to the empty scuttle. " I
rang for coals."

Magdalen went back to the kitchen regions.
After communicating the admiral's order to the
servant whose special duty it was to attend to
the fires, she returned to the pantry; and gently
closing the door, sat down alone to think.

It had been her impression in the drawing-
room—and it was her impression still— that she
had accidentally surprised Admiral Bartram
on a visit to the east rooms, which, for some
urgent reason of his own, he wished to keep a
secret. Haunted day and night, by the one
dominant idea that now possessed her, she leapt
all logical difficulties at a bound; and, at once
associated the suspicion of a secret proceeding
on the admiral's part, with the kindred suspicion
which pointed to him as the depositary of the
Secret Trust. Up to this time, it had been her
settled belief that he kept all his important
documents in one or other of the suite of rooms
which he happened to be occupying for the
time being. Why—she now asked herself, with
a sudden distrust of the conclusion which had
hitherto satisfied her mind— why might he not
lock some of them up in the other rooms as
well? The remembrance of the keys still
concealed in their hiding-place in her room,
sharpened her sense of the reasonableness of
this new view. With one unimportant exception,
those keys had all failed when she tried them
in the rooms on the north side of the house.
Might they not succeed with the cabinets and
cupboards in the east rooms, on which she had never
tried, or thought of trying them, yet? If there
was a chance, however small, of turning them to
better account than she had turned them thus
far, it was a chance to be tried. If there was
a possibility, however remote, that the Trust
might be hidden in any one of the locked
repositories in the East wing, it was a possibility to be
put to the test. When? Her own experience
answered the question. At the time when no
prying eyes were open, and no accidents were to
be feared—when the house was quiet in the
dead of night.

She knew enough of her changed self to dread
the enervating influence of delay. She
determined to run the risk, headlong, that night.

More blunders escaped her, when dinner-time
came; the admiral's criticisms on her waiting at
table were sharper than ever. His hardest
words inflicted no pain on her; she scarcely
heard him—her mind was dull to every sense but
the sense of the coming trial. The evening,
which had passed slowly to her on the night of
her first experiment with the keys, passed quickly
now. When bedtime came, bedtime took her by
surprise.

She waited longer, on this occasion, than she
had waited before. The admiral was at home;
he might alter his mind and go down stairs again,
after he had gone up to his room; he might have
forgotten something in the library, and might
return to fetch it. Midnight struck from the
clock in the servants' hall, before she ventured
out of her room, with the keys again in her
pocket, with the candle again in her hand.

At the first of the stairs on which she set her
foot to descend, an all-mastering hesitation, an
unintelligible shrinking from some peril unknown,
seized her on a sudden. She waited, and
reasoned with herself. She had recoiled from
no sacrifices, she had yielded to no fears, in
carrying out the stratagem by which she had
gained admission to St. Crux; and now, when
the long array of difficulties at the outset had
been patiently conquered—now, when by sheer
force of resolution the starting-point was gained,
she hesitated to advance. " I shrank from
nothing to get here," she said to herself. " What
madness possesses me that I shrink now?"

Every pulse in her quickened at the thought,