Some water had dripped on to the cabinet from a damp place in the ceiling, and a few drops had penetrated down to the inner drawers, rusting the silver of the lowest drawer—the left-hand one.
Janet fitted the key into it. It turned easily, but the drawer resisted. It came out a little way, and then stuck. It was quite full. Janet gave another pull, and the narrow, shallow drawer came out, with difficulty—but still, it did come out.
On the top, methodically folded, were some hand-written directions for fancy work. Cuckoo never did any needlework. Janet raised them, and looked underneath. Where was the packet tied with hair? It was nowhere to be seen. There were a quantity of letters loosely laid together. Could these be they? Evidently they had not been touched for a long time, for the grime of London air and fog had settled on them. Janet wiped the topmost with her handkerchief, and a few words came clearly out: "My darling. My treasure." Her handkerchief had touched something loose in the corner of the drawer. Could this dim, moth-fretten lock have once been Cuckoo's yellow hair? Even as she looked, out of it came a moth, dragging itself slowly over the face of the letter, opening its unused wings. It crawled up over the rusted silver scroll-work, and flew away into the room.
Yes. These must be the letters. They had been tied once, and the moth had eaten away the tie. She took them carefully up. There were a great many. She gathered them all together, as she thought; looked again at the back of the drawer to make sure, and found a few more, with a little gilt heart rusted into them. Then she replaced the needlework directions, pushed to the drawer—which resisted again, and then went back into its place—locked it, extracted the key, locked the cabinet, and threw the key out of a broken pane of the window. She saw it light on the roof lower down, and slide into the safe keeping of the gutter.
Then she moved away the shrivelled hydrangeas which stood in the fire-place, and put the letters into the empty grate. Once more she went to the door and listened. All was quite still. She came back. On the chimney-piece stood a photograph of Monkey Brand grinning smugly through its cracked glass. Behind it was a silver match-box with a pig on it, and "Scratch me" written on it. Cuckoo affected everything she called "quaint."
Janet struck a match, knelt down, and held it to the pile of letters.
But love-letters never yet burned easily. Perhaps they have passed through the flame of life, and after that no feebler fire can reach them quickly. The fire shrank from them, and match after match went out, flame after flame wavered, and refused to meddle with them.
After wasting time in several exactly similar attempts when one failure would have been sufficient, Janet opened and crumpled some of them to let the air get to them. The handwriting was strangely familiar. She observed the fact without reasoning on it. Then she sprinkled the remainder of the letters on the top of the crumpled ones, and again set the pile alight.