The anxiety this possibility involved nerved me to instant action.  I leaped forward to the one clear spot singled out for me by chance and began a hurried scrutiny of the short strip of wall which was all that was revealed to me on the right-hand side.  Did it hold the marked brick?  My little candle shook with eagerness and it was with difficulty I could see the face of the brick close enough to determine.  But fortune favored, and presently my eye fell on one whose surface showed a ruder, scratched cross.  It was in the lowest row and well within reach of my hand.  If I could move it the box would soon be in my possession—­and what might that box not contain!

Looking about, I found the furnace and soon the gas-jet which made attendance upon it possible.  This lit, I could set my candle down, and yet see plainly enough to work.  I had shears in my pocket.  I have had a man’s training in the handling of tools and felt quite confident that I could pry this brick out if it was as easily loosened as Bess had given me to understand.  My first thrust at the dusty cement inclosing it encouraged me greatly.  It was very friable and so shallow that my scissors’-point picked it at once.  In five minutes’ time the brick was clear, so that I easily lifted it out and set it on the floor.  The small black hole which was left was large enough to admit my hand.  I wasted no time thrusting it in, expecting to feel the box at once and draw it out.  But it was farther back than I expected, and while I was feeling about something gave way and fell with a slight, rustling noise down out of my reach.  Was it the box?  No, for in another instant I had come in contact with its broken edges and had drawn it out; the falling object must have been some extra mortar, and it had gone where?  I did not stop to consider then.  The object in my hand was too alluring; the size, the shape too suggestive of a package of folded bonds for me to think of anything but the satisfaction of my curiosity and the consequent clearing of a very serious mystery.

Just at this moment, one of intense excitement, I heard, or thought I heard, a stealthy step behind me.  Forcing myself to calmness, however, I turned and, holding the candle high convinced myself that I was alone in the cellar.

Carrying the box nearer the light, I pulled off its already loosened string and lifted the cover.  In doing this I suffered from no qualms of conscience.  My duty seemed very clear to me, and the end, a totally impersonal one, more than justified the means.

A folded paper met my eyes—­one—­not of the kind I expected; then some letters whose address I caught at a glance.  “Elizabeth Brainard”—­a discovery which might have stayed my hand at another time, but nothing could stay it now.  I opened the paper and looked at it.  Alas! it was only her marriage certificate; I had taken all this trouble and all this risk, only to rescue for her the proof of her union with one John Silverthorn Brainard.  The same name was on her letters.  Why had Bess so strongly insisted on a secret search, and why had she concealed her license in so strange a place?