ed into the cupboard, its shallowness would suggest to
them that there must be a wide empty space behind it, and by setting
to work with axes, picks, and crowbars, they would soon discover by
force the secret she was trying to penetrate by stratagem.

This reflection considerably damped her hopes; but she thought that
possibly from this easily-discoverable hiding-place there might be
some access, much more difficult to trace, to another lying below. At
any rate she determined that if she did find the secret entrance to
these little rooms, and found that they were empty she would not be
disheartened, but would search further until she found either some
secret closet where the will might be placed, or an entrance to some
perhaps larger hiding-place below. Her subsequent search outside
showed her that there existed several small iron gratings about six
inches long and three deep, close down to the soil of the border. No
doubt these were intended to give ventilation underneath the floors,
which were some two feet above the outside level, but one of them
might also afford ventilation to an underground chamber.

Three months passed, and on the occasion of each of her visits to the
room she devoted some time to the examination of the carved woodwork
round the fireplace and that of the bookcases, but without making any
discovery whatever; and it became evident to her that a far closer
search would be needed than the short and hasty examination that was
all she dared to make, with the possibility that at any moment Miss
Penfold might appear at the door. Accordingly she wrote to Mr.
Tallboys, and told him that it would be necessary for her to obtain a
cake of very soft wax, four inches long and two inches wide, and asked
him to procure it for her, and to send it in a wooden box to her by
the carrier's cart that once a week journeyed from Weymouth to the
villages in the neighborhood of the Hall.

Ten days later she received the wax, and the next time the day for
cleaning the library arrived she quietly withdrew the key from the
door as soon as Miss Penfold had left her, laid it on the wax, and
pressed it steadily until a deep impression was made upon its surface.
Then she carefully examined the key to see that no particle of wax had
stuck between the wards, replaced it in the door, closed the lid of
the little box in which the wax lay, and put it in her pocket, and
then set to at her work of cleaning.

Upon this occasion she s