“Precisely so,” said Tom. “He might look into it a dozen times if he liked, and still he should not see all that it held. But we will go upstairs again, and the mystery shall be elucidated.” So they went upstairs again to Edith’s dressing-room, and Tom flung wide open the doors of the wardrobe. The ladies had seen similar articles of furniture scores of times before, and this one seemed in nowise different from any other. There was a shelf near the top; and below the shelf were the usual pegs on which to hang articles of clothing: and that was all. Disappointment was plainly visible on every face. Tom smiled, and gave one of the brass pegs a downward pull. As he did so, they could hear the click of a little bolt as it shot back into its socket. Then the back of the wardrobe, from the shelf downwards, yielding to Tom’s hand, opened slowly outwards on hidden hinges, disclosing, as it did so, a space sufficiently large for a man to stand upright in between itself—when shut—and the real back. In order to illustrate thoroughly the use to which it was intended to put it, Tom stepped into the recess, and pulling the false back towards him, shut himself in. Seeing the wardrobe thus, no one would ever have suspected that anything was hidden in it. By pulling a ring, the person inside could open the door of his temporary prison, so that any one could step in and out at will, and almost as easily as if were simply going out of one room into another. Tom then explained the mechanism of the wardrobe, so that there could be no possible mistake should the necessity for using it ever arise. The recess in which the wardrobe stood was a very deep one, and this it was which had first given him the idea of utilizing it in the way described. “This is the place in which I intend to hide Lionel Dering,” said Tom, as he shut the wardrobe doors, “should his innocence not be proved at his trial, and should I succeed in effecting his escape from Duxley gaol.” “But about his escape,” said Mrs. Garside. “May I ask——” and then she stopped. “Don’t ask me anything at present, my dear madam,” said Tom. “My scheme is hardly clear to my own mind as yet.” Then, turning to Edith, he added, “But for all that, I hope that a day or two more will see it thoroughly perfected. Time enough then to trouble you with whatever other details it may be necessary for you to know.” “Some people say that the grand old days when Friendship was something more than an empty name are dead and gone for ever. I will never believe them when they tell me so in time to come.” So spoke Edith to Tom as they stood together for a moment at the door ere the latter took his leave. “Dering saved my life,” answered Tom, simply. “But for his brave heart, and his strong arm, the hand you now clasp in yours, and the body to which it belongs, would be mouldering at the bottom of the sea, or else have been buried by strangers in some nameless grave. Can such a service be readily forgotten?”