As he sat in melancholy cogitation, he heard a suppressed chuckle at the door, and, slewing his head about, caught sight of Darda standing above in the hall. “What do you want?” he said sharply. She nodded at him with a fantastic gesture. “My curiosities,” she said. “Do you wish to see them?” He was about to return a peevish refusal; but bethought himself that with such an one, a promise unfulfilled was like to prove a recurring annoyance. Therefore he rose resignedly and went to the door. “Lead on,” said he, “and I will come.” She flitted before him, looking back from time to time with a changeling coquetry that was half-repellant, half-fascinating. Her actions, all lithe and graceful, were yet marked by an exaggeration that transcended the bounds of reasonable self-control. She led him to a narrow back stairway mounting from a sort of stone closet set in an odd corner of the north wing, where meagre light entered by way of a square aperture cut in the masonry and barred with a sturdy grate of iron. The spot was like a prison-cell in the black melancholy of its surroundings. Arid moss grew in the crevices of the stones, and everywhere the viscous tracks of snails laced the walls, as if in a feeble attempt to beautify what was obdurate. Crossing the floor, the boards, at a certain place, gave up a booming sound, as if there were a vault underneath. The girl paused, with a light foot on the stairway. “You hear it?” she said. “That is where the shadows sleep at mid-day. But when the sun loses his hold of the white ladder he has climbed by, they come out and grow and grow in joy to see him fall. Then all night they can fill the house, for they are brave and big.” “What is it?” said the baronet. “A vault?” She moved back a step, and stamped with her slender foot. “They call it ‘the Priests’ Hole,’” she said. “Perhaps they hid there and became shadows in time. You may open it if you will. It is too heavy for me.” He saw a ring in the boards, and tugged at it. A square of flooring yielded and came slowly up, screeching like the mandrake. Beneath was revealed a stone-lined chamber, some seven feet in depth and four in width, into which a weak gush of light found passage from some distant grating. A dismal hiding-place, in all truth, where, it seemed, a man might perish forgotten in the racket of the times that gave it existence. “It was hard to find once,” said Darda. “Hidden and tucked away in the hollow of the wall, ’tis said. Then the shadows must have been short and the world always day.” “A weary thing for men, my lass. Lead on.” He let the flap fall into place with a slam of thunder, and followed the girl up the stairs. These led to the servants’ quarter, where were situated the two little sleeping-places of Dennis and his sister. Into her own room she flitted, and bade her companion watch while she unlocked and threw open the door of a tall wooden press that stood in a recess of the chimney.