I had come in contact
with its broken edges and had drawn it out; the falling object must
have been some extra mortar, and it had gone where? I did not stop to
consider then. The object in my hand was too alluring; the size, the
shape too suggestive of a package of folded bonds for me to think
of anything but the satisfaction of my curiosity and the consequent
clearing of a very serious mystery.

Just at this moment, one of intense excitement, I heard, or thought I
heard, a stealthy step behind me. Forcing myself to calmness, however, I
turned and, holding the candle high convinced myself that I was alone in
the cellar.

Carrying the box nearer the light, I pulled off its already loosened
string and lifted the cover. In doing this I suffered from no qualms
of conscience. My duty seemed very clear to me, and the end, a totally
impersonal one, more than justified the means.

A folded paper met my eyes--one--not of the kind I expected; then some
letters whose address I caught at a glance. "Elizabeth Brainard"--a
discovery which might have stayed my hand at another time, but nothing
could stay it now. I opened the paper and looked at it. Alas! it was
only her marriage certificate; I had taken all this trouble and all
this risk, only to rescue for her the proof of her union with one John
Silverthorn Brainard. The same name was on her letters. Why had Bess
so strongly insisted on a secret search, and why had she concealed her
license in so strange a place?

Greatly sobered, I restored the paper to its place in the box,
slipped on the string and prepared to leave the cellar with it. Then I
remembered the brick on the floor and the open hole where it had been,
and afterward the something which had fallen over within and what this
space might mean in a seemingly solid wall.

More excited now even than I had been at any time before, I thrust
my hand in again and tried to sound the depth of this unexpected
far-reaching hole; but the size of my arm stood in the way of my
experiment, and, drawing out my hand, I looked about for a stick and
finding one, plunged that in. To my surprise and growing satisfaction
it went in its full length--about three feet. There was a cavity on the
other side of this wall of very sizable dimensions. Had I struck the
suspected passage? I had great hope of it. Nothing else would account
for so large a space on the other side of a wall which gave every
indication of being one with the foundation. C