"It's--it's rather jolly, isn't it?" she cried nervously as his hand touched her shoulder. She grasped it eagerly. "Much jollier than if we could see." A few moments later: "Isn't it nice and dry over here. How clever of you, Eric, to find it in the dark." On their hands and knees they had crept to the place of shelter, and were seated on a broad, substantial beam with their backs against a thin, hollow-sounding partition. The journey was not without incident. As they felt their way over the loose and sometimes widely separated boards laid down to protect the laths and plaster of the ceiling below, his knee slipped off and before he could prevent it, his foot struck the lathing with considerable force. "Clumsy ass!" he muttered. After a long time, she said to him,--a little pathetically: "I hope M. Mirabeau doesn't forget we are up here." "I should hope not," he said fervently. "Mrs. Millidew is going out to dinner this evening. I'd--" "Oh-h!" she whispered tensely. "Look!" A thin streak of light appeared in front of them. Fascinated, they watched it widen, slowly,--relentlessly. The trap-door was being raised from below. A hand and arm came into view,--the propelling power. "Is that you, de Bosky?" called out Trotter, in a penetrating whisper. Abruptly the trap flew wide open and dropped back on the scantlings with a bang. The head and shoulders of a man,--a bald-headed man, at that,--rose quickly above the ledge, and an instant later a lighted lantern followed. "Oh, dear!" murmured Lady Jane, aghast. "It--it isn't Mr. de Bosky, Eric. It's that man." "I beg your pardon, Lord Temple," said Mr. Alfred Chambers, setting the lantern down in order to brush the dust off of his hands. "Are you there?" "What is the meaning of this, sir?" demanded the young man on the beam, blinking rapidly in the unaccustomed glare. Mr. Chambers rested his elbows on the ledge. The light of the lantern shone full on his face, revealing the slow but sure growth of a joyous grin. "Permit me to introduce myself, your lordship. Mr. Alfred Chambers, of--" "I know,--I know!" broke in the other impatiently. "What the devil do you want?" "Good evening, Miss Emsdale," said Mr. Chambers, remembering his manners. "That is to say,--your ladyship. 'Pon my word, you can't possibly be more surprised than I am,--either of you. I shouldn't have dreamed of looking in this--this stuffy hole for--for anything except bats." He chortled. "I can't understand why some one below there doesn't knock that ladder from under you," said Mr. Trotter rudely. "I was on the point of giving up in despair," went on Mr. Chambers, unoffended. "You know, I shouldn't have thought of looking up here for you." His quarry bethought himself of the loyal, conspiring friends below. "See here, Mr. Chambers," he began earnestly, "I want you to understand that those gentlemen downstairs are absolutely innocent of any criminal complicity in--"