out there when you were least expecting it? Well, if you have, you
know how angry it makes you. I wanted somebody's blood. Hardly that,
perhaps, for I had been decently brought up.

But the thought of my mother, of my father's disappearance, and the
stupefying clink on my nose, all taken together, made me wild to be at
somebody. Oh, it is easy to say "How wicked--yet so young!" and so on;
but just try it yourself.

Anyway, this is how it happened to me. I was up again, and tearing
like mad down the passage, quicker than a wink. I did not care, at
that moment, whether it was Jeremy Orrin or Mr. Stennis himself. One
of the two I knew it must be. But the iron hook on its six-foot pole
gave me confidence. I could feel the point of it sharp even in the
darkness. I found out afterwards it was used to pull down the hanging
lamps which the mad women and Miss Aphra--who was only half mad--used
in their mystic ceremonies. I expect they were trying to raise the
devil. Which was quite a work of supererogation--I think that is the
word, but Elsie knows--considering that their own brother, Mad Jeremy,
was on foot--and healthy, thank'ee kindly!

Well, I grabbed my hook and made after my shadowy man who had darted
from behind the big reading desk. I knew some mystic palaver or other
had been going on, but what that mummery had to do with the death or
disappearance of my father I did not care--only just streaked it down
the passage. It was dark as pitch, of course, but firm underfoot, and
of a uniform height. The walls had been painted recently, I should
say, for I felt the bits of plaster come away in my hand as I put it
out, and all along the courses of the stones felt ridgy.

Then all of a sudden it dipped down, and the going got wet and soppy.

"Under the moat!" said I to myself, thinking myself no end clever to
have hit on it. "We will be going up presently," I added to myself.

Just so it happened. And then Joseph Yarrow thought himself the
cleverest fellow in the world; though, come to think of it now, it was
really a chance word of Elsie's that set me on the track.

Anyway, there was somebody before me, for I heard a door open, then
shut, and, as it seemed, a kind of fumbling as if with a key which
wouldn't act.

I was at the door in a trice--indeed, I rather tumbled upon it. For
there were two or three steps leading up, pretty sloppy and slippery
with green stuff, and the smell of dank earth all about.