One thing is certain. The inheritance I must preserve at every
sacrifice. Dear me, how late it is! I ought to have been in bed hours
ago. Puckers, is that you?"

Puckers did not answer, and a faint rustle in the adjoining room,
which had called forth Miss Bruce's question, ceased the instant she
spoke aloud.

This young lady was not nervous; far from it; yet her watch seemed
to tick with extraordinary vigour, and her heart to beat harder than
common while she listened.

The door of communication between the two rooms was closed. Another
door in the smaller apartment opened to the passage, but this, she
remembered, was habitually locked on the inside. It couldn't be
Puckers, therefore, who thus disturbed her mistress's reflections,
unless that handmaiden had come down the chimney, or in at the window.

In this smaller room Miss Bruce kept her riding-habits, her
ball-dresses, her draperies of different fabric, her transparencies of
all kinds, and her jewels.

The house was very silent--so silent, that in the distant corridors
were distinctly audible those faint and ghostly footfalls, which
traverse all large houses after midnight. There were candles burning
on Maud's toilet-table, but they served rather to show how dismal were
the shadowy corners of the large, lofty bedroom, than to afford light
and confidence to its inmate.

She listened intently. Yes; she was sure she heard somebody in the