Haunted day and night by the one dominant idea
that now possessed her, she leaped all logical difficulties at a bound,
and at once associated the suspicion of a secret proceeding on the
admiral's part with the kindred suspicion which pointed to him as the
depositary of the Secret Trust. Up to this time it had been her settled
belief that he kept all his important documents in one or other of the
suite of rooms which he happened to be occupying for the time being.
Why--she now asked herself, with a sudden distrust of the conclusion
which had hitherto satisfied her mind--why might he not lock some of
them up in the other rooms as well? The remembrance of the keys still
concealed in their hiding-place in her room sharpened her sense of the
reasonableness of this new view. With one unimportant exception, those
keys had all failed when she tried them in the rooms on the north side
of the house. Might they not succeed with the cabinets and cupboards in
the east rooms, on which she had never tried them, or thought of trying
them, yet? If there was a chance, however small, of turning them to
better account than she had turned them thus far, it was a chance to be
tried.
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