ange relic
of my mother months ago) which yielded a little in my hand, and seemed
to invite me to test it again. The second time it gave more, and after
a while, being eaten through with rust, it broke off.

The bars on either side of it proved equally yielding, and though some
cost more trouble than others, I succeeded in about half-an-hour in
breaking away sufficient to effect an entrance. The window behind the
bars was easily forced, and once more I found myself standing inside
Kilgorman.

It would be a lie to say that I felt no fears. Indeed every step I took
along the dark passage helped to chill my blood, and long before I had
reached the door of the great kitchen I wished myself safe outside
again.

But shame, and the memory of that pathetic message from my dead mother,
held me to my purpose. And, as if to encourage me, the candle stood
where I had found it once before on the little ledge, and beside it, to
my astonishment, a small crust of bread. It must have stood there a
week, and was both stale and mouldy. But to my famishing taste it was a
repast for a king, and put a little new courage into me.

It surprised me to find the great apartment once again crowded with
arms, stacked all along the sides and laid in heaps on the centre of the
floor. What perplexed me was not so much the arms themselves as the
marvel how those that brought them entered and left the house.

But just now I had no time for such speculations. I was strung up to a
certain duty, and that I must perform, and leave speculation for later.
My mother's letter, if it meant anything, meant that I was to seek for
something below or behind the great hearth; and as I peered carefully
round it with my candle I could not help recalling the ghost which Tim
and I had both heard, years ago, advance to this very spot and there
halt.

Save the deep recess of the fireplace itself, there was no sign above or
below of any hiding-place. The flagstones at my feet were solid and
firm, and the bricks on either side showed neither gap nor crack. I
pushed the candle further in and stepped cautiously over the crumbled
embers into the hollow of the deep grate itself.

As I did so a blast from above extinguished the light, and at the same
moment a sound of footsteps fell on my ear, not this time from the outer
passage, but apparently from some passage on the other side of the wall
against which I crouched.

I felt round wildly with my hands for the