s of a sigh turned to the left and
retreated along the passage.

''Tis a lady!' I murmured to myself, overcome with astonishment.

Almost at once I heard a firm tread of feet upon the stairs below, and
there mounting quickly another figure now showed at the head of the
stairs, and I recognised in the half light that it was my uncle.

He did not pause, but turned at once to the left, and incontinently
followed after the fragile figure of the lady, who had disappeared from
view into the misty depth of the corridor.

I stood dumbfounded. Here was a double mystery which I felt bound,
though a little shaken in my nerves, to unravel.

A-tiptoe I followed after my uncle along the dark passage, feeling my
way lest I should knock against the pictures or the various bronze casts
that stood on pedestals beside the wall.

The passage turned shortly again to the left and led, as I knew, past my
uncle's bedroom to the muniment room situate at the end of the wing.

When I turned the corner there was just sufficient moonlight from the
south window to show me the dim figure of my uncle standing within the
muniment room, apparently feeling with his hands upon the wall.

As I stood irresolute, but keenly watchful, I saw the sudden purple
flame of a match leap up in the darkling room. My uncle had lit a match,
and with trembling, excited fingers was applying the flame to a candle
that stood on the table.

He held the candle up towards the wall, peering intently upon it, and as
I drew nearer on tiptoe I could hear him exclaiming in disjointed
utterance.

'She vanished here. Just here. At last, then, I have discovered her
grave. Yet the cruelty of it! for I know she was innocent.'

He drew something from his pocket and marked upon the wall therewith;
then tapped with his knuckles, and, finding it to resound hollow, cried
joyfully, 'Ay, it is as I suspected, quite resonant. Yes! she shall have
a Christian burial.' He drew his hand across his forehead, signed with
the Cross, louted low before an ikon of the Madonna, and I heard him say
fervently:

'Ago tibi gratias, Immaculata.'

Seemingly satisfied, he turned again and narrowly scrutinised the wall
once more, then slowly, and as though very tired, withdrew from the room
and came back along the passage, and passed within his own chamber.

As he came on I stepped velvet-footed backwards, waited a few minutes at
the corner to see if he would come out once more, but as he almost