there were smaller labels, of parchment, tied
to the handles of some of the keys, to indicate
the rooms to which they gave admission.
The particular key which she had used had
one of these labels hanging to it. She held
the little strip of parchment close to the
light, and read on it, in written characters
faded by time,

"The Myrtle Room."

The room in which the letter was hidden
has a name, then!  A prettily sounding
name that would attract most people, and
keep pleasantly in their memories.  A name
to be distrusted by her, after what she had
done, on that very account.

She took her housewife from its usual
place in the pocket of her apron, and, with
the scissors which it contained, cut the
label from the key.  Was it enough to
destroy that one only?  She lost herself in a
maze of useless conjecture; and ended by
cutting off the other labels, from no other
motive than instinctive suspicion of them.

Carefully gathering up the strips of parchment
from the floor, she put them, along with
the little rusty key which she had brought
out of the Myrtle Room, in the empty pocket
of her apron,  Then, carrying the large
bunch of keys in her hand, and carefully
locking the doors that she had opened on her
way to the north side of Porthgenna Tower,
she retraced her steps to the housekeeper's
room, entered it without seeing anybody,
and hung up the bunch of keys again on the
nail of the wall.

Fearful, as the morning hours wore on, of
meeting with some of the female servants,
she next hastened back to her bed-room.
The candle she had left there was still
burning feebly in the fresh daylight. When
she drew aside the window-curtain, after
extinguishing the candle, a shadow of her
former fear passed over her face, even in the
broad daylight that now flowed in upon it.
She opened the window, and leaned out
eagerly into the cool air.

Whether for good or for evil, the fatal
secret was hidden now- the act was done.
There was something calming in the first
consciousness of that one fact. She could
think more composedly, after that, of herself,
and of the uncertain future that lay before
her.

Under no circumstances, could she have
expected to remain in her situation, now that
the connection between herself and her mistress
had been severed by death.  She knew
that Mrs. Treverton, in the last days of her
illness, had earnestly recommended her maid
to Captain Treverton's kindness and protection,
and she felt assured that the wife's last
entreaties, in this as in all other instances,
would be viewed as the most sacred of
obligations by the husband.  But could she
accept protection and kindness at the hand
of the master whom she had been accessory
to deceiving, and whom she had now

committed herself to deceiving still?  The bare
idea of such baseness was so revolting, that
she accepted, almost with a sense of relief,
the one sad alternative that remained- the
alternative of leaving the house immediately.

And how was she to leave it?  By giving
formal warning, and so exposing herself to
questions which would be sure to confuse
and terrify her?  Could she venture to face
her master again, after what she had done-
to face him, when his first inquiries would
refer to her mistress, when he would be certain
to ask her for the last mournful details, for
the slightest word that had been spoken during
the death-scene which she alone had
witnessed?  She started to her feet, as the
certain consequences of submitting herself to
that unendurable trial all crowded together
warningly on her mind, took her cloak from
its place on the wall, and listened at her door
in sudden suspicion and fear.  Had she heard
footsteps?  Was her master sending for her
already?

No: all was silent outside. A few tears
rolled over her cheeks, as she put on her
bonnet, and felt that she was facing, by the
performance of that simple everyday action,
the last, and perhaps the hardest to meet, of
the cruel necessities in which the hiding of
the secret had involved her.  There was no
help for it.  She must run the risk of
betraying everything, or brave the double trail
of leaving Porthgenna Tower, and leaving it
secretly.

Secretly- as a thief might go?  Secretly-
without a word to her master; without so
much as one line of writing to thank him
for his kindness, and to ask his pardon?
She had unlocked her desk, and had taken
from it her purse, one or two letters, and a
little book of Wesley's Hymns, before these
considerations occurred to her.  They made
her pause in the act of shutting up the desk.
"Shall I write?"  she asked herself, "and
leave the letter here, to be found when I am
gone?"  A little more reflection decided her
in the affirmative.  As rapidly as her pen
could form the letters, she wrote a few
lines, addressed to Captain Treverton, in
which she confessed to having kept a secret
from his knowledge which had been left in
her charge to divulge; adding, that she honestly
believed no harm could come to him,
or to any one in whom he was interested, by
her failing to perform the duty entrusted to
her; and ending by asking her pardon for
leaving the house secretly, and by begging,
as a last favour, that no search might ever be
made for her.  Having sealed this short note,
and left it on her table, with her master's
name written outside, she listened again at
the door; and, after satisfying herself that
no one was yet stirring, began to descend
the stairs at Porthgenna Tower for the last
time.

At the entrance of the passage leading to
the nursery, she stopped. The tears which