The first stage in this _dénouement_ was that the small room on the turret became uninhabitable. This occurred through the fall of the worm-eaten oaken beam which supported the ceiling. Rotten with age, it snapped in the middle one morning, and brought down a quantity of the plaster with it. Fortunately Sir John was not in the room at the time. His precious box was rescued from amongst the _débris_ and brought into the library, where, henceforward, it was locked within his bureau. Sir John took no steps to repair the damage, and I never had an opportunity of searching for that secret passage, the existence of which I had surmised. As to the lady, I had thought that this would have brought her visits to an end, had I not one evening heard Mr. Richards asking Mrs. Stevens who the woman was whom he had overheard talking to Sir John in the library. I could not catch her reply, but I saw from her manner that it was not the first time that she had had to answer or avoid the same question. "You've heard the voice, Colmore?" said the agent. I confessed that I had. "And what do _you_ think of it?" I shrugged my shoulders, and remarked that it was no business of mine. "Come, come, you are just as curious as any of us. Is it a woman or not?" "It is certainly a woman." "Which room did you hear it from?" "From the turret-room, before the ceiling fell." "But I heard it from the library only last night. I passed the door as I was going to bed, and I heard something wailing and praying just as plainly as I hear you. It may be a woman----" "Why, what else _could_ it be?" He looked at me hard. "There are more things in heaven and earth," said he. "If it is a woman, how does she get there?" "I don't know." "No, nor I. But if it is the other thing--but there, for a practical business man at the end of the nineteenth century this is rather a ridiculous line of conversation." He turned away, but I saw that he felt even more than he had said. To all the old ghost stories of Thorpe Place a new one was being added before our very eyes. It may by this time have taken its permanent place, for though an explanation came to me, it never reached the others. And my explanation came in this way. I had suffered a sleepless night from neuralgia, and about mid-day I had taken a heavy dose of chlorodyne to alleviate the pain. At that time I was finishing the indexing of Sir John Bollamore's library, and it was my custom to work there from five till seven. On this particular day I struggled against the double effect of my bad night and the narcotic. I have already mentioned that there was a recess in the library, and in this it was my habit to work. I settled down steadily to my task, but my weariness overcame me and, falling back upon the settee, I dropped into a heavy sleep. [Illustration: "SIR JOHN BOLLAMORE WAS SITTING AT HIS STUDY TABLE."]