Heaven alone knows how long I remained there motionless, my mind elsewhere, drifting idly backward to the old home, reviewing the years of war that had transformed me from boy to man as though by some magic. The varied incidents of march, camp, and battle were like dreams, so swiftly did they pass across the retina of the brain, each stirring event leading to another as I climbed from the ranks to command. Yet at the end of all came again the vision of Claire Mortimer, and I was seeing in her blue eyes the hope of the future. The candle sputtering fitfully aroused me to the passing of time, and I lit another, and placed it in the candlestick. Surely the search of the house would be completed by this time, but perhaps the intention was to keep me concealed until Grant and his men had finally departed. The silence and loneliness caused me to become restless. I could not entirely throw off the sense of being buried alive in this dismal hole. I wondered if there was any way of escape, if that secret door was not locked and unlocked only from without. A desire to ascertain led me to take candle in hand, and climb the circular staircase, examining the wall as I passed upward. The interior of the chimney revealed nothing. While I felt convinced there must also be a false fireplace on the first floor, so as to carry out the deception, the dim candle light made no revealment of its position. I could judge very nearly where it should appear, and I sounded the wall thereabout carefully both above and below without result. Nor did any noise reach me to disclose a thinness of partition.