When he ceased speaking, a thought struck him that, as he had found her alone, the dame might have died unattended, and might be supposed to be yet living by the inattentive household. Impressed with this belief, he determined to give the alarm, and took a step towards the door, which was only a few paces distant, with that view. But he quickly changed his resolution, and, retracing his step, turned to the bedside again. Here he looked once more at the corpse, and then, with a tenderness which his rugged appearance would hardly have prepared one to expect, placed his fingers on the dead matron’s eyelids, and fulfilled the last sad office of closing them. He seemed now to recollect, for the first time since he had entered the chamber, what was the business that had brought him thither, and the recollection was certainly not calculated to soothe or console him. He had come in search of the paper which was to establish the legitimacy of Hildebrand Clifford; but the demise of Dame Shedlock, who alone could furnish him with that paper, and who had promised to place it in his hands, rendered the prospect of his achieving such an acquisition quite hopeless. What clue had he to the place in which it had been deposited? With his forefinger pressed against his forehead, he proceeded to recall, word by word, all that had passed at their last meeting, between him and the dame; and pondered deliberately on each syllable. At length, he recollected that, as she concluded her disclosures, she had seemed to point at something over her shoulders. Hastily glancing over the head of the bed, his eye fell on the wardrobe, with which, it may be borne in mind, the course of our history has shown him to have been connected heretofore. With a beating heart, he sprang a pace or two forward, and drew the wardrobe-door open. It revealed a small recess, having no shelves, but a row of pegs, some four or five in number, just below the ceiling, from which dangled several articles of female apparel. Bernard examined these separately, but, on the most searching investigation, they afforded him no clue, in any one particular, to the document he so earnestly sought.