That is sure to do its business--and safely." Thus ruminating, she shaped her course towards the southwest corner of the cathedral, and passing under the shrouds and cloisters of the Convocation House, raised the latch of a small wooden shed fixed in the angle of a buttress.

Evidently well acquainted with the place, she was not long in finding a lantern and materials to light it, and inserting her fingers in a crevice of the masonry, from which the mortar had been removed, she drew forth a key.
"It has not been stirred since I left it here a month ago," she muttered.

"I must take care of this key, for if Matthew _should_ die, I may not be able to enter the vaults of Saint Faith's without it; and as I know all their secret places and passages, which nobody else does, except my husband, I can make them a storehouse for the plunder I may obtain during the pestilence.

If it rages for a year, or only half that time, and increases in violence (as God grant it may), I will fill every hole in those walls with gold." With this, she took up the lantern, and crept along the side of the cathedral, until she came to a flight of stone steps.

Descending them, she unlocked a small but strong door, cased with iron, and fastening it after her, proceeded along a narrow stone passage, which brought her to another door, opening upon the south aisle of Saint Faith's.
Pausing for a moment to listen whether any one was within the sacred structure--for such was the dead and awful silence of the place, that the slightest whisper or footfall, even at its farthest extremity, could be distinguished--she crossed to the other side, glancing fearfully around her as she threaded the ranks of pillars, whose heavy and embrowned shafts her lantern feebly illumined, and entering a recess, took a small stone out of the wall, and deposited the chief part of the contents of her pocket behind it, after which she carefully replaced the stone.