The angry woman’s lips twitched nervously, and her hands were clinched with passion that this poor, friendless girl should dare to thwart her so—that she should dare to stand so proudly, defiantly before her, and fling out so coolly her scathing sarcasms. She grew white as the delicate lace at her throat, and her eyes burned with a lurid light which boded mischief. “Hark,” she said, suddenly. “Somebody is coming. It may be Isabel, and we shall have a scene. Come into my room, and I will let you out through there.” She walked swiftly across the room, seemingly much disturbed, although Brownie had caught no sound of any one approaching. She pushed aside some hangings and revealed a narrow door. Brownie wondered that such a narrow, peculiar door should connect two elegant rooms, but she reasoned that this must be part of the original castle, and that all these elegant hangings had been put up to conceal the awkward doors. Before opening it, Mrs. Coolidge shoved a heavy bolt (another circumstance which struck Brownie as singular), and, opening the door, revealed a small, square room or passage, dimly lighted by a dormer window set high in the stone wall. The place was perfectly bare, and there was a damp, uncanny feeling in the atmosphere, as if it had not been opened before in a long while. Brownie involuntarily drew back, as she reached the door, and again glanced suspiciously at her companion. Mrs. Coolidge, who was watching her prey with the intentness of a cat watching a mouse, noticed her hesitation, and, with a light laugh, said: “It isn’t a very nice way to take you, Miss Douglas, but it saves going through the corridor, and I would not have Isabel meet you now, with that casket in your hands, for the world. My room is at the end of this passage, and we use it when we want to run back and forth. I do not think it can have been used much of late years, for it is so damp and full of cobwebs; but I discovered it while gratifying my Yankee curiosity to find out what was underneath all these hangings, and we have found it very convenient, I assure you. Come on; I’ll go forward and open the door at the other end of the passage, and then you will see better.” She half-crossed the dimly lighted space, and Brownie followed, considerably reassured by her fluent explanation, although even then she thought it strange that the door should have been bolted if the passage was “so convenient.” Suddenly Mrs. Coolidge stopped, with a startled look. “Did you not hear some one at the door?” she whispered. “No; I heard nothing,” Brownie replied, yet bending her head to listen. “There is surely some one there,” persisted Mrs. Coolidge. “I forgot to unlock Isabel’s door, and the key is in my pocket. Wait just a moment while I go and unfasten it.”