"The passage must wind a little," said I. "Let us go back. We shall soon see the light from the passage-way." I took her cold, damp hand in mine, and we turned back. But, alas! when we had taken more than twenty steps, twice told, no light was to be seen. "Lucy," said Amabel in a whisper, "Lucy, we are lost!" "Nonsense!" said I, angrily. "How could we be lost? We have taken the wrong turn, that is all! Let us try to go back." And so we did; but the obscurity was still the same—thick, black darkness, that could be felt. "We are lost!" repeated Amabel, with a curious kind of coolness. "There is no use in denying it, Lucy. No doubt there are many branching passages, and we took the wrong one." "I am afraid we are, and it is all the fault of that hateful Desireè!" said I, beginning to cry. "Only for her, we should never have come." "She could not have made us come," replied Amabel. "No, Lucy, let us blame nobody but ourselves. We have been very naughty, indeed, and we may as well own it." "You were not naughty. You only came because I did," I sobbed, as we still hurried on, we knew not whither. "And I wouldn't care if it was only myself; though I know I should die, if I were here alone. But what shall we do?" "We must not go a step more in this way, that is certain!" said Amabel, stopping short at last. "Lucy, don't you feel how wet and soft the ground is getting under our feet? Let us turn exactly round, so as to face the other way." We did so, and none too soon, for the ground was, indeed, growing very soft; and, as it was, I got out with the loss of one shoe. We walked back till we came to firm ground, and then Amabel stopped again, holding me tightly by the hand, as I would have gone on. "Do not let us take another step," said she. "We only go farther astray. Let us kneel down and say our prayers, and then keep still till some one comes." "No one will ever come!" said I despairingly. "Desireè will not tell, for fear of being punished; and we shall perish here alone, unless we are torn in pieces by some of the dreadful creatures that live in such places." For we children, one and all were firmly persuaded that the cellars were the haunts of all sorts of Bogeys. "God and the Holy Virgin will take care of us," said Amabel. "Some one is sure to come. Dénice will tell, if no one else does; and, besides Mother Bursar will guess. Come, let us kneel down and say our prayers, and then call as loud as we can." We said our prayers, and then began to call loudly for help; but none came for a long time, or so it seemed to us. We found afterwards that it was about two hours. The sisters, it seems, were at "obedience," which is the hour when they all meet in the superior's room to give an account of their employments and hear whatever she had to say to them. And Dénice could find no one to whom she could tell her story. It may be guessed that the hours seemed much longer to us poor young things.