"
When they went home, Davie, running up to lady Arctura's room,
recounted to her as well as he could the conversation he had just
had with Mr. Grant.
"Oh, Arkie!" he said, "to hear him talk, you would think Death
hadn't a leg to stand upon!"
Arctura smiled; but it was a smile through a cloud of unshed tears.
Lovely as death might be, she would like to get the good of this
world before going to the next!--As if God would deny us any
good!--At one time she had been willing to go, she thought, but she
was not now!--The world had of late grown very beautiful to her!
CHAPTER LXI.
THE BUREAU.
On the Monday night Donal again went down into the hidden parts of
the castle. Arctura had come to the schoolroom, but seemed ill able
for her work, and he did not tell her what he was doing farther.
They were rather the ghosts of fears than fears themselves that had
assailed him, and this time they hardly came near him as he wrought.
With his new file he made better work than before, and soon finished
cutting through the top of the staple. Trying it then with a poker
as a lever, he broke the bottom part across; so there was nothing to
hold the bolt, and with a creaking noise of rusty hinges the door
slowly opened to his steady pull. Nothing appeared but a wall of
plank! He gave it a push; it yielded: another door, close-fitting,
and without any fastening, flew open, revealing a small closet or
press, and on the opposite side of it a third door.
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