A few moments spent in measuring on the first floor in the great hall, and the library, which ran parallel to it, proved the correctness of his theory, that the space enclosed was smaller at the bottom than at the top, as only six feet was unaccounted for. Evidently on this floor the tower contained merely a staircase. He now carried his investigations to the second storey. The room over the library had been assigned to Kent-Lauriston, and as the Secretary's knock elicited no answer, he took the liberty of entering, finding, as he supposed, that his friend had gone out. The inside measurements of this room gave only ten feet, where they should have given twenty-five, and brought up at a large fireplace, which had no existence in the apartment below, and which was apparently much deeper than was really the case. Around and behind this there was a secret chamber of considerable dimensions, but half an hour's experiments brought the Secretary no nearer effecting an entrance. The old blue glazed tiles of the fireplace, and the bricks which composed its floor, were alike immovable. There was only the roof left; if he failed there, he must resign himself to the inevitable, and bend all his energies on trying to open the secret door. At the risk of being thought prying and meddlesome, Stanley now proceeded to search for some mode of ascent to the leads, and after many mistakes and much wandering, he discovered at last a worm-eaten ladder. This he climbed, at great bodily risk, and forcing a rusty scuttle, emerged at last, safe and unperceived, on top of the house, amidst a wilderness of peaks and undulations, which attested more to the ingenuity of mediæval builders, than gave promise of comfort to him who attempted to traverse it. At last, however, by dint of much scrambling, and several hair-breadth escapes from an undignified descent to the lawn, he reached the point at which the tower sprang from the roof. It rose sheer above him for almost forty feet, unbroken by any window or excrescence, and thinly covered by ivy which, while it was too scattered to conceal any outlet, at the same time afforded no foothold for ascent. It was dreadfully tantalising. Once on those crumbling battlements, he persuaded himself he should have no trouble in entering through the roof. The missing letter was then within reach, and the young man saw the road to rapid promotion stretch glitteringly before him; saw that Darcy would be in his power, with all that it implied; but saw that forty feet of frowning masonry, which separated him from his hopes, and cursed his luck.