After first reporting herself in the housekeeper's room, she went
upstairs to remove her bonnet and shawl; taking that opportunity to hide
the keys in her bed-chamber until night came. They were crusted thick
with rust and dirt; but she dared not attempt to clean them until
bed-time secluded her from the prying eyes of the servants in the
solitude of her room.
When the dinner hour brought her, as usual, into personal contact with
the admiral, she was at once struck by a change in him. For the first
time in her experience the old gentleman was silent and depressed.
He ate less than usual, and he hardly said five words to her from the
beginning of the meal to the end. Some unwelcome subject of reflection
had evidently fixed itself on his mind, and remained there persistently,
in spite of his efforts to shake it off. At intervals through the
evening, she wondered with an ever-growing perplexity what the subject
could be.
At last the lagging hours reached their end, and bed-time came. Before
she slept that night Magdalen had cleaned the keys from all impurities,
and had oiled the wards, to help them smoothly into the locks. The last
difficulty that remained was the difficulty of choosing the time when
the experiment might be tried with the least risk of interruption and
discovery.
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