My excuse--or rather the one I made to myself for thus returning to a place I had seemingly exhausted, was this. In the quick turn I had made in leaving on the former occasion, my foot had struck the edge of the large rug nailed over the center of the floor, and unaccountably loosened it. To rectify this mishap, and also to see how so slight a shock could have lifted the large brass nails by which it had been held down to the floor, seemed reason enough for my action. But how to draw her attention to so insignificant a fact without incurring her ridicule I could not decide in our brief passage back to the bungalow, and consequently was greatly relieved when, upon opening the door and turning my lantern on the scene, I discovered that in our absence the rug had torn itself still farther free from the floor and now lay with one of its corners well curled over--the corner farthest from the door and nearest the divan where little Gwendolen had been lying when she was lifted and carried away--where? Mrs. Carew saw it too and cast me a startled look which I met with a smile possibly as ambiguous as the feeling which prompted it. "Who has been here?" she asked. "Ourselves." "Did we do that?" "I did; or rather my foot struck the edge of the rug as I turned to go out with you. Shall I replace it and press back the nails?" "If you will be so good." Do what she would there was eagerness in her tone. Remarking this, I decided to give another and closer look at the floor and the nails. I found the latter had not been properly inserted; or rather that there were two indentations for every nail, a deep one and one quite shallow. This caused me to make some examination of the others, those which had not been drawn from the floor, and I found that one or two of them were equally insecure, but not all; only those about this one corner. Mrs. Carew, who had paused, confused and faltering in the doorway, in her dismay at seeing me engaged in this inspection instead of in replacing the rug as I had proposed, now advanced a step, so that our glances met as I looked up with the remark: "This rug seems to have been lately raised at this corner. Do you know if the police had it up?" "I don't. I believe so--oh, Mr. Trevitt," she cried, as I rose to my feet with the corner of the rug in my hand, "what are you going to do?" She had run forward impetuously and was now standing close beside me--inconveniently close. "I am going to raise this rug," I informed her. "That is, just at this corner. Pardon me, I shall have to ask you to move." "Certainly, of course," she stammered. "Oh, what is going to happen now?" Then as she watched me: "There is--there _is_ something under it. A door in the floor--a--a--Mrs. Ocumpaugh never told me of this." "Do you suppose she knew it?" I inquired, looking up into her face, which was very near but not near enough to be in the full light of the lantern, which was pointed another way.