But though speculation might run rife in the school and a hundred different theories be advanced, there was not the slightest means of verifying a single one of them. Ghosts, smugglers, or a family skeleton were among the favourite suggestions, and the girls often amused themselves with even wilder fancies. From the outside the secluded room presented as insuperable a barrier as from within; heavy shutters secured the window and guarded the secret closely and jealously from all prying and peeping. That uncanny noises should apparently issue from this abode of mystery goes without saying. There were mice in plenty, and even an occasional rat or two in the old house, and their gnawings, scamperings, and squeakings might easily be construed into thumps, bumps, and blood-curdling groans. The girls would often get up scares among themselves and be absolutely convinced that a tragedy, either real or supernatural, was being enacted behind the oak door. Miss Birks, sensible and matter-of-fact as became a headmistress, laughed at her pupils' notions, and declared that her chief objection to the peculiar clause in her lease was the waste of a good bedroom which would have been invaluable as an extra dormitory. She hung a thick plush curtain over the doorway, and utterly tabooed the subject of the mystery. She could not, however, prevent the girls talking about it among themselves, and to them the barred room became a veritable Bluebeard's chamber. At night they scuttled past it with averted gaze and fingers stuffed in their ears, having an uneasy apprehension lest a skeleton hand should suddenly draw aside the curtain and a face--be it ghost or grinning goblin--peer at them out of the darkness. They would dare each other to stand and listen, or to pass the door alone, and among the younger ones a character for heroism stood or fell on the capacity of venturing nearest to the so-called "bogey hole". Though Miss Birks might well regret such a disability in her lease of the Dower House, she was proud of the old-world aspect of the place, and treasured up any traditions of the past that she could gather together. She had carefully written down all surviving details of the Franciscan convent, having after endless trouble secured some account of it from rare books and manuscripts in the possession of some of the country gentry in the neighbourhood. Beyond the dates of its founding and dissolution, and the names of its abbesses, there was little to be learnt, though a few old records of business transactions gave an idea of its extent and importance.