Slowly the time dragged on. The fourth week came; and Magdalen had made
no new discoveries. The prospect was depressing in the last degree. Even
in the apparently hopeless event of her devising a means of getting at
the admiral's keys, she could not count on retaining possession of them
unsuspected more than a few hours--hours which might be utterly wasted
through her not knowing in what direction to begin the search. The Trust
might be locked up in any one of some twenty receptacles for papers,
situated in four different rooms; and which room was the likeliest to
look in, which receptacle was the most promising to begin with, which
position among other heaps of papers the one paper needful might
be expected to occupy, was more than she could say. Hemmed in by
immeasurable uncertainties on every side; condemned, as it were, to
wander blindfold on the very brink of success, she waited for the chance
that never came, for the event that never happened, with a patience
which was sinking already into the patience of despair.
Night after night she looked back over the vanished days, and not an
event rose on her memory to distinguish them one from the other.
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