"I'll make myself well enough," returned the good-natured lady: "and I think I am really so. My dear, I have always meant from, the time you joined as to tell you of this secret passage: and for two reasons. The one because the Head of our Community ought not to be in ignorance that there is such a place; the other because it was your cousin who recently has disappeared so unaccountably in the Keep--though I suppose the passage could not have had anything to do with that. But for my illness, I should have spoken before. We will go to-night, if you will." Mary Ursula eagerly embraced the proposal on the spot. Attiring themselves in their warmest grey cloaks, the hoods well muffled about their heads, for Sister Mildred said the passage would strike cold as an ice-house, they descended to the vaults below; the elder lady carrying the keys and Mary Ursula the lighted horn lantern, which had slides to its four sides to make it lighter or darker at will. "See, here's the door," whispered Sister Mildred, advancing to an obscure corner. "No one would ever find it; unless they had a special talent for exploring as my poor Mary had. Do you see this little nail in the wall? Well the keys were hanging up there: and it was in consequence of the keys catching her eye That Mary looked for the door." It required the efforts of both ladies to turn the key in the rusty lock. As the small gothic door was pushed open, a rash of cold damp air blew on their faces. The passage was hardly wide enough to admit two abreast; at least without brushing against the walls on either side. The ladies held one another; Mary Ursula keeping a little in advance, her hand stretched upwards with the lantern so that its light might guide their steps. A very long passage: no diversion in it, no turnings or angles or outlets, as Sister Mildred had described; nothing but the damp and monotonous stone walls on either hand or overhead. While Mary Ursula was wondering whether they were going on for ever, the glimmer of the lantern suddenly played on a gothic door in front, of the same size and shape as the one they had passed through. "This is the other door, and this is the key," whispered Sister Mildred. They put it in the lock. It turned with some difficulty and a grating sound, and the door slowly opened towards them. Another minute, and they had passed into the vaults beneath the Friar's Keep. Very damp and cold and mouldy and unearthly. As far as Mary Ursula could judge, in the dim and confined light emitted by the small lantern, they appeared to be quite like the cloisters above: the same massive upright pillars of division forming arches against the roof, the same damp stone flooring. There was no outlet to be seen in any part; no staircase upwards or downwards. Mary Ursula carried her lantern and waved it about but could find none: none save the door they had come through. "Is there any outlet to this place, except the passage?" she asked of Sister Mildred.