he secret
chamber, to lie there stunned, no one knows. Dorothy could not
explain herself. Anyhow, there she was, and the moment she came to
her senses and found herself in the dark she began to scream with
fright."

"But how was it no one had ever discovered the secret chamber
before?" demanded Eustace. "It seems funny."

"You would not think so if you saw the cupboard," Mrs. Orban said.
"It is a little, insignificant-looking thing--low and rather deep,
and, as we then found, built into the wall. The back of the lower
shelf was a sliding panel; and your grandfather's theory is that
the last person who used the secret chamber left the panel open.
Without nearly standing on one's head it was impossible to see the
back of the lower shelf, and no one had ever suspected such a
thing."

"O Bob, Bob, wouldn't you just like to see Maze Court?" cried
Eustace. "I shall never be happy till I do."

"I tell you you will all be off on Miss Dorothy's broomstick one of
these fine days," growled Bob. "She is a witch, and she has already
bewitched you, for you can talk of nothing but England now."

"You had better go to bed, Eustace," Mrs. Orban said with a laugh.
"Bob is getting quite fierce."

Bob left very early next day to get back to work. As Nesta and
Peter were having holidays, Eustace, of course, did no lessons, but
spent the day very contentedly helping his mother. She was busy
rearranging furniture in the room that was to be Miss Chase's, and
they scarcely sat down the whole day till evening.

"Early to bed this night, my son," said Mrs. Orban as they left the
dinner-table. "I expect you will sleep like a top."

He was looking sleepy already, and a quarter of an hour later went
very readily to his room, with a parting entreaty to his mother
that she would not sit up late.

"Not I," was the laughing rejoinder. "I promise you I will only
write one little line to father and begin my mail letter to
grannie, and then I will go to bed."

This Mrs. Orban did, and being very tired she fell asleep almost as
soon as her head touched the pillow.

For several hours a great silence reigned over the house; but even
when it was broken by the soft pad-pad-pad of bare feet creeping
stealthily round the veranda, the sleepers lay utterly unconscious.
The stairs had not creaked under the weight of this figure; it cast
no shadows, for there was no light either within the house or
without. At every window it halted, listened, peered