m again with some little difficulty, proceeded to try
the keys in the bookcase cupboards next, before she continued her
investigations in the other rooms.

The bookcase cupboards were unassailable, the drawers and cupboards in
all the other rooms were unassailable. One after another she tried them
patiently in regular succession. It was useless. The chance which the
cabinet in the library had offered in her favor was the first chance and
the last.

She went back to her room, seeing nothing but her own gliding shadow,
hearing nothing but her own stealthy footfall in the midnight stillness
of the house. After mechanically putting the keys away in their former
hiding-place, she looked toward her bed, and turned away from it,
shuddering. The warning remembrance of what she had suffered that
morning in the garden was vividly present to her mind. "Another chance
tried," she thought to herself, "and another chance lost! I shall break
down again if I think of it; and I shall think of it if I lie awake in
the dark." She had brought a work-box with her to St. Crux, as one
of the many little things which in her character of a servant it was
desirable to possess; and she now opened the box and applied herself
resolutely to work. Her want of dexterity with her needle assisted the
object she had in view; it obliged her to pay the closest attention to
her employment; it forced her thoughts away from the two subjects of all
others which she now dreaded most--herself and the future.

The next day, as he had arranged, the admiral returned. His visit to
London had not improved his spirits. The shadow of some unconquerable
doubt still clouded his face; his restless tongue was strangely quiet,
while Magdalen waited on him at his solitary meal. That night the
snoring resounded once more on the inner side of the screen, and old
Mazey was back again in the comfortless truckle-bed.

Three more days passed--April came. On the second of the month
--returning as unexpectedly as he had departed a week before--Mr. George
Bartram re-appeared at St. Crux.

He came back early in the afternoon, and had an interview with his uncle
in the library. The interview over, he left the house again, and was
driven to the railway by the groom in time to catch the last train to
London that night. The groom noticed, on the road, that "Mr. George
seemed to be rather pleased than otherwise at leaving St. Crux." He also
remarked, on his return, that the admiral sw