pot I was most interested in, and I found myself too
dizzy to look further. In the center of Mrs. Ransome's roof there was to
be seen what I can best describe as an extended cupola without windows.
As there was no other break visible in the roof, the top of this must
have held the skylight, which, being thus lifted many feet above the
level of the garret floor, would admit air and light enough to the
boarded-up space below, but would make any effort to be heard or seen,
on the part of any one secreted there, quite ineffectual. One might, by
a great effort, fling up a bead out of this funnel-shaped opening,
but, even to my limited sense of mechanics, the chances seemed very
unfavorable towards it doing much more than roll over the spacious roof
into the huge gutters surrounding it.

Yet, if it chose to bound, it might clear the coping and fall, as one
had fallen, on the devoted head of a person walking on the lawn below.
All this I saw at a glance, and then, sick and dizzy, I crept back, and,
with but little apology for my abruptness, took leave of Mrs. Vandyke
and left the house.

The resolution I took in doing this was worthy of an older head and a
more disciplined heart. By means that were fair, or by means that were
foul, I meant to win my way into that boarded-up attic and see for
myself if the words hidden away in my vinaigrette were true. To do
this openly would cause a scandal I was yet too much under my husband's
influence to risk; while to do it secretly meant the obtaining of keys
which I had every reason to believe he kept hidden about his person.
How was I to obtain them? I saw no way, but that did not deter me from
starting at once down town in the hope of being struck by some brilliant
idea while waiting for him in his office.

Was it instinct that suggested this, or was the hand of Providence in
all that I did at this time? I had no sooner seated myself in the little
room, where I had been accustomed to wait for him, than I saw what sent
the blood tingling to my finger-tips in sudden hope. It was my husband's
vest hanging in one corner, the vest he had worn down town that morning.
The day was warm and he had taken it off. _If the key should be in it!_

I had never done a mean or underhanded thing before in my life, but I
sprang at that vest without the least hesitation, and fingering it with
the lightest of touches, found in the smallest of inside pockets a
key, which instinct immediately told me was t