“If your nephew fails to comply with these conditions—­that is to say, if, being either a bachelor or a widower at the time of my decease, he fails to marry in all respects as I have here instructed him to marry, within six calendar months from that time—­it is my desire that he shall not receive—­”

She had read to that point, to that last word and no further, when a hand passed suddenly from behind her between the letter and her eye, and gripped her fast by the wrist in an instant.

She turned with a shriek of terror, and found herself face to face with old Mazey.

The veteran’s eyes were bloodshot; his hand was heavy; his list slippers were twisted crookedly on his feet; and his body swayed to and fro on his widely parted legs.  If he had tested his condition that night by the unfailing criterion of the model ship, he must have inevitably pronounced sentence on himself in the usual form:  “Drunk again, Mazey; drunk again.”

“You young Jezebel!” said the old sailor, with a leer on one side of his face, and a frown on the other.  “The next time you take to night-walking in the neighborhood of Freeze-your-Bones, use those sharp eyes of yours first, and make sure there’s nobody else night walking in the garden outside.  Drop it, Jezebel! drop it!”

Keeping fast hold of Magdalen’s arm with one hand, he took the letter from her with the other, put it back into the open drawer, and locked the bureau.  She never struggled with him, she never spoke.  Her energy was gone; her powers of resistance were crushed.  The terrors of that horrible night, following one close on the other in reiterated shocks, had struck her down at last.  She yielded as submissively, she trembled as helplessly, as the weakest woman living.

Old Mazey dropped her arm, and pointed with drunken solemnity to a chair in an inner corner of the room.  She sat down, still without uttering a word.  The veteran (breathing very hard over it) steadied himself on both elbows against the slanting top of the bureau, and from that commanding position addressed Magdalen once more.

“Come and be locked up!” said old Mazey, wagging his venerable head with judicial severity.  “There’ll be a court of inquiry to-morrow morning, and I’m witness—­worse luck!—­I’m witness.  You young jade, you’ve committed burglary—­that’s what you’ve done.  His honor the admiral’s keys stolen; his honor the admiral’s desk ransacked; and his honor the admiral’s private letters broke open.  Burglary!  Burglary!  Come and be locked up!” He slowly recovered an upright position, with the assistance of his hands, backed by the solid resisting power of the bureau; and lapsed into lachrymose soliloquy.  “Who’d have thought it?” said old Mazey, paternally watering at the eyes.  “Take the outside of her, and she’s as straight as a poplar; take the inside of her, and she’s as crooked as Sin.  Such a fine-grown girl, too.  What a pity! what a pity!”