Day after day the women watched her with the untiring vigilance of malice and distrust, and day after day not the vestige of a discovery rewarded them for their pains.  Silently, intelligently, and industriously—­with an ever-present remembrance of herself and her place—­the new parlor-maid did her work.  Her only intervals of rest and relaxation were the intervals passed occasionally in the day with old Mazey and the dogs, and the precious interval of the night during which she was secure from observation in the solitude of her room.  Thanks to the superfluity of bed-chambers at St. Crux, each one of the servants had the choice, if she pleased, of sleeping in a room of her own.  Alone in the night, Magdalen might dare to be herself again—­might dream of the past, and wake from the dream, encountering no curious eyes to notice that she was in tears—­might ponder over the future, and be roused by no whisperings in corners, which tainted her with the suspicion of “having something on her mind.”

Satisfied, thus far, of the perfect security of her position in the house, she profited next by a second chance in her favor, which—­before the fortnight was at an end—­relieved her mind of all doubt on the formidable subject of Mrs. Lecount.

Partly from the accidental gossip of the women at the table in the servants’ hall; partly from a marked paragraph in a Swiss newspaper, which she had found one morning lying open on the admiral’s easy-chair—­she gained the welcome assurance that no danger was to be dreaded, this time, from the housekeeper’s presence on the scene.  Mrs. Lecount had, as it appeared, passed a week or more at St. Crux after the date of her master’s death, and had then left England, to live on the interest of her legacy, in honorable and prosperous retirement, in her native place.  The paragraph in the Swiss newspaper described the fulfillment of this laudable project.  Mrs. Lecount had not only established herself at Zurich, but (wisely mindful of the uncertainty of life) had also settled the charitable uses to which her fortune was to be applied after her death.  One half of it was to go to the founding of a “Lecompte Scholarship” for poor students in the University of Geneva.  The other half was to be employed by the municipal authorities of Zurich in the maintenance and education of a certain number of orphan girls, natives of the city, who were to be trained for domestic service in later life.  The Swiss journalist adverted to these philanthropic bequests in terms of extravagant eulogy.  Zurich was congratulated on the possession of a Paragon of public virtue; and William Tell, in the character of benefactor to Switzerland, was compared disadvantageously with Mrs. Lecount.

The third week began, and Magdalen was now at liberty to take her first step forward on the way to the discovery of the Secret Trust.