But there was no one there, and only the accumulated rubbish of the house met her view, as she came fully into the garret and cast her eyes from corner to corner and beam to beam. Through the dingy window at the north the moon was looking in, and lighting up that end of the garret with a weird, ghostly kind of light, which made Magdalen shiver more than utter darkness would have done. She knew she was alone; there was no sign of life around her, except the huge rat, which, frightened at this unlooked-for visitation, sprang from Magdalen knew not where, and running past her disappeared in a hole low down under the eaves, reminding Magdalen of what Hester had said of “the loose plank under the rafters where you have to stoop.” At sight of the rat Magdalen had uttered a cry, which she quickly suppressed, and then stood watching the frightened animal, until it disappeared from sight. “There can be no harm in seeing if there _is_ a loose board there,” Magdalen thought; and setting her candle upon a little table she groped her way after the rat, bumping her head once as old Hester had bumped hers; and then crouching down upon her knees, she examined the floor in that part of the garret, growing faint and cold and frightened when she found that far back under the roof there _was_ a board, shorter than the others, which looked as if it might with a little trouble be lifted from its place. It fitted perfectly, and, but for what old Hester had said, might never have been discovered to be loose and capable of being moved from its position. Magdalen was not quite sure, even now, that she could raise it, and if she could, did she wish to, and for what reason? “Was there anything hidden under it, and if so, _was it_—?” Magdalen did not dare repeat the last word even to herself, and, as she thought it, there came rushing over her a feeling as if she were already guilty of making Roger Irving a beggar. “No, no, I can’t do that. If there is anything under there,—which I do not believe,—it may remain there for all of me,” she said; and her face was very pale as she drew back from beneath the roof, and took the candle in her hand.