In this condition of mind, filled with anxiety, pleasing doubts, apprehensions, shame, and hope, all relieved, however, by the secret consciousness of perfect innocence, and motives that angels might avow, Maud stood, in the very spot where Mike had left her, turning the box in her hands, when accidentally she touched the spring, and the lid flew open.  To glance at the contents was an act so natural and involuntary as to anticipate reflection.

Nothing was visible but a piece of white paper, neatly folded, and compressed into the box in a way to fill its interior.  “Bob has written,” thought Maud—­“Yet how could he do this?  He was in the dark, and had not pen or paper!” Another look rendered this conjecture still more improbable, as it showed the gilt edge of paper of the quality used for notes, an article equally unlikely to be found in the mill and in his own pocket.  “Yet it must be a note,” passed through her mind, “and of course it was written before he left the Hut—­quite likely before he arrived—­possibly the year before, when he spoke of the box as containing the evidence of the great secret of his life.”

Maud now wished for Mike, incoherent, unintelligible, and blundering as he was, that she might question him still further as to the precise words of the message.  “Possibly Bob did not intend me to open the-box at all,” she thought, “and meant merely that I should keep it until he could return to claim it.  It contains a great secret; and, because he wishes to keep this secret from the Indians, it does not follow that he intends to reveal it to me.  I will shut the box again, and guard his secret as I would one of my own.”

This was no sooner thought than it was done.  A pressure of the lid closed it, and Maud heard the snap of the spring with a start.  Scarcely was the act performed ere she repented it.  “Bob would not have sent the box without some particular object,” she went on to imagine; “and had he intended it not to be opened, he would have told as much to O’Hearn.  How easy would it have been for him to say, and for Mike to repeat, ’tell her to keep the box till I ask for it—­it contains a secret, and I wish my captors not to learn it.’  No, he has sent the box with the design that I should examine its contents.  His very life may depend on my doing so; yes, and on my doing so this minute!”

This last notion no sooner glanced athwart our heroine’s mind, than she began diligently to search for the hidden spring.  Perhaps curiosity had its influence on the eagerness to arrive at the secret, which she now manifested; possibly a tenderer and still more natural feeling lay concealed behind it all.  At any rate, her pretty little fingers never were employed more nimbly, and not a part of the exterior of the box escaped its pressure.  Still, the secret spring eluded her search.  The box had two or three bands of richly chased work on each side of the place of opening, and amid these ornaments Maud felt certain that the little projection she sought must lie concealed.  To examine these, then, she commenced in a regular and connected manner, resolved that not a single raised point should be neglected.  Accident, however, as before, stood her friend; and, at a moment when she least expected it, the lid flew back, once more exposing the paper to view.