or a padlock a barrier?

In the grenier? No, I did not like the grenier. Besides, most of the
boxes and drawers there were mouldering, and did not lock. Rats, too,
gnawed their way through the decayed wood; and mice made nests amongst
the litter of their contents: my dear letters (most dear still, though
Ichabod was written on their covers) might be consumed by vermin;
certainly the writing would soon become obliterated by damp. No; the
grenier would not do--but where then?

While pondering this problem, I sat in the dormitory window-seat. It
was a fine frosty afternoon; the winter sun, already setting, gleamed
pale on the tops of the garden-shrubs in the "allee defendue." One
great old pear-tree--the nun's pear-tree--stood up a tall dryad
skeleton, grey, gaunt, and stripped. A thought struck me--one of those
queer fantastic thoughts that will sometimes strike solitary people. I
put on my bonnet, cloak, and furs, and went out into the city.

Bending my steps to the old historical quarter of the town, whose hoax
and overshadowed precincts I always sought by instinct in melancholy
moods, I wandered on from street to street, till, having crossed a half
deserted "place" or square, I found myself before a sort of broker's
shop; an ancient place, full of ancient things. What I wanted was a
metal box which might be soldered, or a thick glass jar or bottle which
might be stoppered or sealed hermetically. Amongst miscellaneous heaps,
I found and purchased the latter article.

I then made a little roll of my letters, wrapped them in oiled silk,
bound them with twine, and, having put them in the bottle, got the old
Jew broker to stopper, seal, and make it air-tight. While obeying my
directions, he glanced at me now and then suspiciously from under his
frost-white eyelashes. I believe he thought there was some evil deed on
hand. In all this I had a dreary something--not pleasure--but a sad,
lonely satisfaction. The impulse under which I acted, the mood
controlling me, were similar to the impulse and the mood which had
induced me to visit the confessional. With quick walking I regained the
pensionnat just at dark, and in time for dinner.

At seven o'clock the moon rose. At half-past seven, when the pupils and
teachers were at study, and Madame Beck was with her mother and
children in the salle-a-manger, when the half-boarders were all gone
home, and Rosine had left the vestibule, and all was still--I shawled
myself, and, taking