attention. She was satisfied to the point of being pleased with herself: a
fact indicated by an expressive flutter of slim, fair hands.... And now,
to work! Time pressed, and.... A cloud dimmed the radiance of her eyes;
irresolutely she shifted in her chair, troubled, frowning, lips woefully
drooping. And sighed. And a still small whisper, broken and wretched,
disturbed the quiet of the study.

"I can not! O, I can not!... To spoil it all, _now_, when...."

Yet she must. She must forget herself and steel her determination with the
memory that another's happiness hung in the balance, depended upon her
success. Twice she had tried and failed. This third time she _must_
succeed.

And bowing her head in token of her resignation, she turned back squarely
to face the desk. As she did so the toe of one small shoe caught against
something on the floor, causing a dull jingling sound. She stooped, with a
low exclamation, and straightened up, a small bunch of keys in her hand:
eight or ten of them dangling from a silver ring: Maitland's keys.

He must have dropped them there, forgetting them altogether. A find
of value and one to save her a deal of trouble: skeleton keys are so
exasperatingly slow, particularly when used by inexpert hands. But how to
bring herself to make use of these? All's fair in war (and this was a sort
of war, a war of wits at least); but one should fight with one's own arms,
not pilfer the enemy's and turn them against him. To use these keys to
ransack Maitland's desk seemed an action even more blackly dishonorable
than this clandestine visit, this midnight foray.

Swinging the notched metal slips from a slender finger, she contemplated