"I shivered at my thoughts," said Margaret quietly, gazing into the darkness, wondering whether she would see any sign of an ascending passage, which might mean a rising to some house cellar like Herman's. She felt more hopeful when the floor dipped again, and so suddenly that she slipped on the slimy earth, and would have fallen but for Herman's strong arm which kept her on her feet. "Your thoughts?" exclaimed Herman questioningly. "I was thinking of what would happen if this path ended at someone's house," she said, looking carefully to her footing. An exclamation escaped Herman's lips. He had hoped that a fear like that was only his, and not hers, for the same idea had come to him. "Who would have thought of such a thing as that?" he said half laughingly, to hide his own anxiety, but the girl at his side was not deceived. "I thought so, Herman, and so did you," Margaret said half reproachfully, clinging still more tightly to her companion, for the way in front grew blacker and more forbidding. But on they went, determined to know what the end of this underground path would be. "I believe we are in a great cavern, sweetheart," said Herman presently, when they halted involuntarily. The floor on which they were treading was no longer soft earth, but gravel and hard rock. No walls were visible, nor could they see any roof. Looking into denser blackness, they heard the splash of water, and the lantern light showed a gleaming drop falling. Going forward, they came to a spot where the dropping water had made for itself a hollow basin, but, passing round it, they walked on. Before they had gone far they halted suddenly, and with an exclamation of dismay; for, stretched full length against the wall, down which some water trickled freely, percolating through the rock overhead, lay the body of a man whose flesh had gone, and time had left nothing but the clothed skeleton--death in its grimmest and most forbidding form. By his side, and clinging to him, lay a woman to whom time had been just as unkind. The man's hand gripped a small book, and Herman, kneeling on the floor to look, saw that it was opened at a page where he read some words that were in startling contrast with the end which had come to these who lay so still. "In my Father's house are many mansions." It was easy to imagine the story of that tragedy. Years before, the Inquisitors had hounded these poor ones, and they had found a hiding-place which became a death-chamber to them. Not daring to venture forth for food or liberty, they had died in this cavern. Margaret and Herman went on, the horror of this discovery, and the pitifulness of it, thrilling them. They had not gone far, tracing the cavern walls in the hope of finding an exit, before they came to an ascending passage, and they stood still again, wondering to what it would lead. Would it take them to a house, and therefore to almost certain danger? Or would it lead them to the open country outside the city?