At this point I sank into a chair, for a strange drowsiness was stealing over me. I could not account for it at the time, but I know now that it was due to the volatility of the liquid, which was operating on my mind with a stupefying effect. Scarcely knowing what I was doing, I lifted up a purple-bound volume from the table, and turning mechanically to the first page, found a fresh surprise in the title of the work, _Silverdale Abbey: Its History and Antiquities_. Why, here was the very book that had disappeared from the library, the book whose loss had so much fretted the Baronet! The contents of the book were not printed, but written with a pen, in a hand beautifully clear and flowing. This manuscript, according to Sir Hugh, had been compiled by an eminent archæologist; but there was at the end an addendum of a few pages which were evidently not by the hand that had penned the body of the work. I recognised the crabbed characters to be those of Sir Hugh's predecessor, whose autograph I had seen. This addendum contained matter that the last Baronet for obvious reasons would not wish to be generally known. It gave an account of certain secret panels, hidden corridors, and subterranean chambers, made in the days of the Commonwealth, when loyalty to the House of Stuart meant confiscation and death. The present Baronet had never read the book, and was ignorant of the existence of these secret rooms, in which his Royalist ancestors had been wont to take refuge from the search of the Puritan soldiery. Not so Angelo. The book had fallen in his way, and by its perusal he had become master of secrets unknown to the household of Silverdale--unknown even to the white-headed old butler, who had passed all his days at the Abbey. It was this knowledge that had enabled the artist to remove his picture with such secrecy during the night, for, as I read on I came to the following: "The Nuns' Tower is connected with the picture gallery by a subterranean passage, which----" I could get no farther. The letters were dancing wildly on the page, and all efforts on my part to persuade them to behave like quiet, respectable members of the alphabet were useless. I found myself mechanically repeating this fragment of a sentence, and then, with the sudden consciousness that I was falling asleep in a very dangerous place, I staggered to my feet, but the soporific drug had done its work, and I sank back again into the chair in a state of coma. CHAPTER XV THE DENOUEMENT! I believe it is not an uncommon thing for a sentinel to slumber at his post, and wake to find himself still in a standing posture. To the ordinary mortal, however, this would certainly be a novel experience.