Mary had a long illness, and hovered on the verge of death. She said a
great deal in her wanderings about some one who had looked at her. "For a
moment, a moment," she would cry; "only a moment! and I had so much to
say." But as she got better, nothing was said to her about this face she
had seen. And perhaps it was only the suggestion of some feverish dream.
She was taken away, and was a long time getting up her strength; and in
the meantime the Turners insisted that the chains should be thoroughly
seen to, which were not all in a perfect state. And the earl coming to
see the place, took a fancy to it, and determined to keep it in his own
hands. He was a friendly person, and his ideas of decoration were quite
different from those of his grandmother. He gave away a great deal of
her old furniture, and sold the rest.
Among the articles given away was the Italian cabinet, which the vicar
had always had a fancy for; and naturally it had not been in the vicarage
a day, before the boys insisted on finding out the way of opening the
secret drawer. And there the paper was found, in the most natural way,
without any trouble or mystery at all.