allery!" interposed Cicely.

"Yes," replied Monica. "When people try to overhear conversations, and
put two and two together for themselves, they rarely succeed in coming
to a right conclusion."

Lindsay and Cicely blushed. They had known from the first that Monica
would not approve of either eavesdropping or peeping through keyholes.
This was the part of the business of which they both felt rather
ashamed; they were conscious that there had been a great deal of
curiosity mixed up with their efforts on her behalf. Monica, however,
took no notice of their heightened colour, and went on:

"Both Scott and Mrs. Wilson were quite right in wishing to keep you away
from the attics; you will understand when I explain why. The
hiding-place in the lantern room is a relic of the times of King James
I. Have you learnt yet in your history books what severe penal laws were
made against Roman Catholics in those days? Any priest found celebrating
Mass might be executed, and often he was tortured first to make him tell
the whereabouts of his companions. Our ancestors, who lived then at the
Manor, still belonged to the old faith, and they needed some spot where
they could worship without fear of being disturbed; so they made the
secret entrance through the cupboard, and private services were held in
the great garret. Even with such precautions it was a very dangerous
thing for a priest to remain long in a country house. If his presence
were suspected, and information given, a party of soldiers would at once
come with a search warrant to hunt for him.

"Then he would have to be ready to hurry away into some safer retreat
still, in case his first place of concealment were discovered. At the
end of the farther attic there is a small cupboard most cunningly hidden
in the wall. In front of it there is a shaft, a great, horrible, yawning
chasm, several feet wide and very deep, going quite to the basement of
the house. It was intended as a trap to baffle pursuers, who would fall
down it in the dark when chasing their fugitive."

"Is the shaft still there?" asked Cicely.

"Yes, it is quite untouched and open. It is in such a far-away part of
the attic that nobody has considered it worth while to go to the trouble
of having it covered in. Now you can understand how alarmed Mrs. Wilson
was when she found that some of you had been in the lantern room. She
didn't believe you would really be able to find your way through the
cupboard; still, sh