eave it for
you to see, if you can, below. If you find it, we must do something
else."

It was done, and they descended together. Donal went back to the
schoolroom, not expecting to see her again till the next day. But in
half an hour she came to him, saying she had been into every room on
that floor, both where she thought it might be, and where she knew it
could not be, and had not seen the weight.

"The probability then is," replied Donal, "that thereabout
somewhere--there, or farther down in that neighbourhood--lies the
secret; but we cannot be sure, for the weight may not have reached the
bottom of the shaft. Let us think what we shall do next.

He placed a chair for her by the fire. They had the room to themselves.

CHAPTER LIII.

MISTRESS BROOKES UPON THE EARL.

They were hardly seated when Simmons appeared, saying he had been
looking everywhere for her ladyship, for his lordship was taken as he
had never seen him before: he had fainted right out in the half-way
room, and he could not get him to.

Having given orders to send at once to Auchars for the doctor, lady
Arctura hastened with Donal to the room on the stair. The earl was
stretched motionless and pale on the floor. But for a slight twitching
in one muscle of the face, they might have concluded him dead. They
tried to get something down his throat, but without success. The men
carried him up to his chamber.

He began to come to himself, and lady Arctura left him, telling Simmons
to come to the library when he could, and let them know how he was.

In about an hour he came: the doctor had been, and his master was
better.

"Do you know any cause for the attack?" asked her ladyship.

"I'll tell you all about it, my lady, so far as I know," answered the
butler. "--I was there in that room with him--I had taken him some
accounts, and was answering some questions about them, when all at once
there came a curious noise in the wall. I can't think what it was--an
inward rumbling it was, that seemed to go up and down the wall with a
sort of groaning, then stopped a while, and came again. It sounded
nothing very dreadful to me; perhaps if it had been in the middle of
the night, I mightn't have liked it. His lordship started at the first
sound of it, turned pale and gasped, then cried out, laid his hand on
his heart, and rolled off his chair. I did what I could for him, but it
wasn't like one of his ordinary attacks, and so I came to your
ladyship.