to consider. The awful face of the dead woman (now fixed
for ever in his memory by the living copy of it that his own eyes had
beheld) seemed to be driving him on swiftly into unknown darkness, to
bring him out into unexpected light at the end. The influence which
was thus sternly at work in him was not to be questioned--it was to be
obeyed.

His resolution in reference to the Hair Bracelet was not more firmly
settled than his resolution to keep his real sensations on seeing
Madonna, and the purpose which had grown out of them, a profound secret
from young Thorpe, who was too warmly Mr. Blyth's friend to be trusted.
Every word that Zack had let slip, had been of vital importance,
hitherto; every word that might yet escape him, might be of the most
precious use for future guidance. "If it's his fun and fancy," mused
Mat, "to go on thinking I'm sweet on the girl, let him think it. The
more he thinks, the more he'll talk. All I've got to do is to _hold in;_
and then he's sure to _let out."_

While schooling himself thus as to his future conduct towards Zack, he
did not forget another person who was less close at hand certainly, but
who might also be turned to good account. Before he fairly decided on
his plan of action, he debated with himself the propriety of returning
to Dibbledean, and forcing from the old woman, Joanna Grice, more
information than she had been willing to give him at their first
interview. But, on reflection, he considered that it was better to leave
this as a resource to be tried, in case of the failure of his first
experiment with the Hair Bracelet. One look at that--one close
comparison of the hair it was made of, with the surplus hair which had
not been used by the jeweler, in Mary Grice's bracelet, and which had
been returned to her in her friend's letter--was all he wanted in
the first place; for this would be enough to clear up every present
uncertainty and suspicion connected with the ornament in the drawer of
Mr. Blyth's bureau.

These were mainly the resolutions to which his long meditation had now
crookedly and clumsily conducted him. His next immediate business was to
examine those letters in the box, which he had hitherto not opened; and
also to possess himself of the enclosure of hair, in the letter to "Mary
Grice," that he might have it always about him ready for any emergency.

Before he opened the box, however, he took a quick, impatient turn or
two up and down his miserable littl