So she ran her hand along the dusty books, little dreaming that the key was there all the time; so in the end, and quite by chance, but for the fact that she was dipping into so many, she took out the right book, and started backward with it in her hand.
The book was _The Faerie Queene_, and Rachel had extracted it in a Gothic spirit, because she had once heard that very few living persons had read it from end to end; since she could not become interested in anything, she might as well be thoroughly bored.

But she never opened the volume, for in the dark slit which it left something shone like a little new moon.

Rachel put in her hand, and felt a small brass handle; to turn and pull it was the work of her hand without a guiding thought; but when tiers of books swung towards her with the opening door which they hid, it was not in human nature to shut that door again without so much as peeping in.
Rachel first peeped, then stepped, into a secret chamber as disappointing at the first glance as such a place could possibly be.

It was deep in dust, and filled with packing-cases not half unpacked, a lumber-room and nothing more.

The door swung to with a click behind her as Rachel stood in the midst of this uninteresting litter, and instinctively she turned round.