s, she yearned to tell someone; she
would get him to help her in her search. For it could not be lost.
It could not be really lost! They would find it somehow--somehow!

It was no actual reasoning but a blind instinct that moved her to
get up at length and go to the room that Guy had occupied for so
long, the room that was Burke's. It was just as Guy had left it
that morning. She noted mechanically the disordered bed. The
cupboard in the corner was closed as usual, but the key was in the
lock. Burke kept his clothes on the higher shelves. The
strong-box stood on the floor with some boots.

Her eyes went straight to it. Some magnetism seemed to be at work,
compelling her. And then--she gave a gasp of wonder, and almost
fell on to the sandy floor beside the box. The key was in the lock!

Was it all a dream then? Had it never been lost? Had she but
imagined Burke's action in confiding it to her? She closed her
eyes for a space, for her brain was swimming. The terrible,
parching heat seemed to have turned into a wheel--a fiery wheel of
torture that revolved behind her eyes, making her wince at every
turn. The pain was intense; when she tried to move, it was
excruciating. She sank down with her head almost on the iron box
and waited in dumb endurance for relief.

A long time passed so, and she fancied later that she must have
slept, for she dared not move while that awful pain lasted, and she
was scarcely conscious of her surroundings. But it became less
acute at last; she found herself sitting up with wide-open eyes,
trying to collect her thoughts.

They evaded her for a while, and she dared not employ any very
strenuous effort to capture them, lest that unspeakable suffering
should return. But gradually--very gradually--the power to reason
returned to her. She found herself gazing at the key that had cost
her so much; and after a little, impelled by what seemed to be
almost a new sense within her, she took it between her quivering
fingers and turned it.

It went with an ease that surprised her, for she remembered--her
brain was becoming every moment more strangely clear and alert--she
remembered that Burke had said only a day or two before that it
needed oiling. She opened the box, and with a fateful premonition
looked within.

A few papers in a rubber band lay in the bottom of the box, and
beside them, carelessly tossed aside, an envelope! There was no
money at all.

She took up the envel