“Please yourself”⁠—and the old woman handed him back the watch. The young man took it, and was so angry that he was on the point of going away; but checked himself at once, remembering that there was nowhere else he could go, and that he had had another object also in coming.

“Hand it over,” he said roughly.

The old woman fumbled in her pocket for her keys, and disappeared behind the curtain into the other room. The young man, left standing alone in the middle of the room, listened inquisitively, thinking. He could hear her unlocking the chest of drawers.

“It must be the top drawer,” he reflected. “So she carries the keys in a pocket on the right. All in one bunch on a steel ring.⁠ ⁠… And there’s one key there, three times as big as all the others, with deep notches; that can’t be the key of the chest of drawers⁠ ⁠… then there must be some other chest or strongbox⁠ ⁠… that’s worth knowing. Strongboxes always have keys like that⁠ ⁠… but how degrading it all is.”