She paused here in reasoning with herself;
her superstitious tears still influencing her out
of doors, in the daylight, as they had
influenced her in her own room, in the time of
darkness. She paused- then fell to smoothing
the letter again, and began to recal the
terms of the solemn engagement which Mrs.
Treverton had forced her to contract.

What had she actually bound herself to
do? Not to destroy the letter, and not to
take it away with her if she left the house.
Beyond that, Mrs. Treverton's desire had
been that the letter should be given to her
husband. Was that last wish binding on the
person to whom it had been confided? Yes.
As binding as an oath? No.

As she arrived at that conclusion, she looked
up. At first, her eyes rested vacantly on the
lonely, deserted north front of the house;
gradually, they became attracted by one
particular window exactly in the middle, on the
floor above the ground- the largest and the
gloomiest of all the row; suddenly, they
brightened with an expression of intelligence.
She started; a faint flush of colour flew into
her cheeks, and she hastily advanced closer to
the wall of the house.

The panes of the large window were yellow
with dust and dirt, and festooned about
fantastically with cobwebs. Below it was a
heap of rubbish, scattered over the dry
mould of what might once have been a bed
of flowers or shrubs. The form of the bed
was still marked out by an oblong boundary
of weeds and rank grass. She followed it
irresolutely all round, looking up  at the
window at every step, then stopped close
under it, glanced at the letter in her hand,
and said to herself abruptly:
"I'll risk it!"

As the words fell from her lips, she
hastened back to the inhabited part of the
house, followed the passage on the kitchen
floor which led to the housekeeper's room,
entered it, and took down from a nail in
the wall a bunch of keys, having a large
ivory label attached to the ring that
connected them, on which was inscribed, " Keys
of the North Rooms."

She placed the keys on a writing-table
near her, took up a pen, and rapidly added
these lines on the blank side of the letter which
she had written under her mistress's
dictation:

"If this paper should ever be found
(which I pray with my whole heart it
never may be), I wish to state that I have
come to the resolution of hiding it, because I
dare not show the writing that it contains to
my master, to whom it is addressed. In
doing what I now propose to do, though I
am acting against my mistress's last wishes,
I am not breaking the solemn engagement
which she obliged me to make before her on
her death-bed. That engagement forbids
me to destroy this letter, or to take it away
with me. if I leave the house. I shall do

neither, my purpose is to conceal it in the
place, of all others, where I think there is
least chance of its ever being found again.
Any hardship or misfortune which may
follow as a consequence of this deceitful
proceeding on my part, will fall on myself.
Others, I believe on my conscience, will be
the happier for the hiding of the dreadful
secret which this letter contains."

She signed those lines with her name,-
pressed them hurriedly over the blottingpad
that lay with the rest of the writing
materials on the table,- took the note in
her hand, after first folding it up, and then,
snatching at the bunch of keys, with a look
all round her, as if she dreaded being secretly
observed, left the room. All her actions
since she had entered it, had been hasty
and sudden; she was evidently afraid of
allowing herself one leisure moment to
reflect.

On quitting the housekeeper's room, she
turned to the left, ascended a back staircase,
and unlocked a door at the top of it. A cloud
of dust flew all about her, as she softly
opened the door; a mouldy coolness made
her shiver as she crossed a large stone hall,
with some black old family portraits, the
canvases of which were bulging out of the
frames, hanging on the walls. Ascending
more stairs, she came upon a row of doors,
all leading into rooms on the first floor of
the north side of the house.

She knelt down, putting the letter on the
boards beside her, opposite the keyhole of
the first door she came to on reaching the
top of the stairs, peered in distrustfully for
an instant, then began to try the different
keys till she found one that fitted the lock.
She had great difficulty in accomplishing
this, from the violence of her agitation, which
made her hands tremble to such a degree
that she was hardly able to keep the keys
separate one from the other. At length she
succeeded in opening the door. Thicker
clouds of dust than she had yet met with
flew out the moment the interior of the
room was visible; a dry, airless, suffocating
atmosphere almost choked her as she stooped
to pick up the letter from the floor. She
recoiled from it at first, and took a few steps
back towards the staircase. But she
recovered her resolution immediately. " I
can't go back now! " she said, desperately,
and entered the room.

She did not remain in it more than two or
three minutes. When she came out again,
her face was white with fear, and the hand
which had held the letter when she went into
the room, held nothing now but a small
rusty key.

After locking the door again, she
examined the large bunch of keys which she
had taken from the housekeeper's room,
with closer attention than she had yet
bestowed on them. Besides the ivory label
attached to the ring that connected them,