such a pity, that she followed him to his room; but she
dared not go in. She stood a moment in the passage within sight of his
door, and thought she heard his bell ring. Now Simmons might meet
Donal! In a moment or two, however, she was relieved. Donal came round
a turn, carrying his implements. She signed to him to make haste, and
he was just safe inside her room when Simmons came along on his way to
his master's. She drew the door to, as if she had been just coming out,
and said,

"Knock at my door as you return, and tell me how your master is: I
heard his bell."

She then begged Donal to go on with his work, but stop it the moment
she made a noise with the handle of the door, and resumed her place
outside till Simmons should re-appear. Full ten minutes she stood
waiting: it seemed an hour. Though she heard Donal at work within, and
knew Simmons must soon come, though the room behind her was her own,
and familiar to her from childhood, the long empty passage in front of
her appeared frightful. What might not come pacing along towards her!
At last she heard her uncle's door--steps--and the butler approached.
She shook the handle of the door, and Donal's blows ceased.

"I can't make him out, my lady!" said Simmons. "It is nothing very bad,
I think, this time; but he gets worse and worse--always taking more and
more o' them horrid drugs. It's no use trying to hide it: he'll drop
off sudden one o' these days! I've heard say laudanum don't shorten
life; but it's not one nor two, nor half a dozen sorts o' laudanums he
keeps mixing in that poor inside o' his! The end must come, and what
will it be? It's better you should be prepared for it when it do come,
my lady. I've just been a giving of him some into his skin--with a
little sharp-pointed thing, a syringe, you know, my lady: he says it's
the only way to take some medicines. He's just a slave to his
medicines, my lady!"

As soon as he was gone, Arctura returned to Donal. He had knocked the
plaster away, and uncovered a slab, very like one of the great stones
on some of the roofs. The next thing was to prize it from the mortar,
and that was not difficult. The instant he drew the stone away, a dank
chill assailed them, accompanied by a humid smell, as from a
long-closed cellar. They stood and looked, now at each other, now at
the opening in the wall, where was nothing but darkness. The room grew
cold and colder. Donal was anxious as to how Arctura might stand what
disc