"No, sir, I don't," said Prance, after a minute's consideration. "I dressed my mistress this morning for the early dinner, and put the room straight afterwards, but I do not remember whether the door was open or shut. I should think it was shut." "It was wide open this afternoon," burst forth Honour, unable to keep quiet any longer, and believing Prance could remember if she chose. "The poor dear child shut it with his own hands while I was finishing his church." "Is it possible?" responded Prance, her perfect coolness of demeanour, her propriety of tone, presenting a contrast to the excitement of the miserable Honour. "I cannot remember how it was when I was dressing my mistress, and I had nothing to do in the room after that." "And did not go into it?" pursued the surgeon. "And did not go into it?" repeated Prance. "Then you know nothing at all as to how the doors could have got fastened?" proceeded Mr. Pym. "No, sir, I do not. I could take an oath, if need be, that I did not know the doors were bolted until you spoke to me now," added the woman, the least possible sound of emotion, arising as it seemed from earnestness, at length perceptible in her tones. "I assure you, sir, I had no idea of it until this moment. I--I should scarcely think it could have been so." There was an ominous glare in Honour's eye at the expressed doubt. Mr. Pym did not want a passage-at-arms between the two then, and raised his hand to command silence. "Did you hear the child's cries, Prance?" he asked. "It is incredible to suppose that he did not cry; and yet no one seems to have heard him." "You mean when he was on fire, sir?" "Of course I mean when he was on fire." "I never heard them, sir. A child could not burn to death without making cries, and desperate cries, but I did not hear them," she continued, more in soliloquy than to the surgeon. "It is an unfortunate thing that no one was within earshot." Honour looked keenly at her from her swollen eyes. Mr. Pym spoke carelessly. "By the way, you were in the recess, Prance, just about the time. Did you neither see nor hear anything then?" "In the recess, sir?" rejoined Prance, turning her impassive face full on Mr. Pym in apparently the utmost astonishment. But not her eyes. "I was in no recess, sir." "Yes you were. In that recess; there," pointing to it. "Honour passed you when you were in it." "It is quite a mistake, sir. What should I do in the recess? If Honour says she saw me there, her sight must have deceived her." "How do you account for your time at the period of the occurrence?" inquired Mr. Pym. "What part of the house were you in?" "I suppose I must have been in the dining-room, sir," she answered readily. "I was in there until just before the alarm was given, and then I had come up to my bedroom." "Let's see. That is the room on the other side Mrs. St. John's bedroom?"