was uppermost, or which best
represented the real womanhood. Nor could I decide in which guise she
appealed to me the most. Hers was a witchery yielding no opportunity for
escape.

Heaven alone knows how long I remained there motionless, my mind
elsewhere, drifting idly backward to the old home, reviewing the years of
war that had transformed me from boy to man as though by some magic. The
varied incidents of march, camp, and battle were like dreams, so swiftly
did they pass across the retina of the brain, each stirring event leading
to another as I climbed from the ranks to command. Yet at the end of all
came again the vision of Claire Mortimer, and I was seeing in her blue
eyes the hope of the future. The candle sputtering fitfully aroused me to
the passing of time, and I lit another, and placed it in the candlestick.
Surely the search of the house would be completed by this time, but
perhaps the intention was to keep me concealed until Grant and his men
had finally departed.

The silence and loneliness caused me to become restless. I could not
entirely throw off the sense of being buried alive in this dismal hole. I
wondered if there was any way of escape, if that secret door was not
locked and unlocked only from without. A desire to ascertain led me to
take candle in hand, and climb the circular staircase, examining the wall
as I passed upward. The interior of the chimney revealed nothing. While I
felt convinced there must also be a false fireplace on the first floor,
so as to carry out the deception, the dim candle light made no revealment
of its position. I could judge very nearly where it should appear, and I
sounded the wall thereabout carefully both above and below without
result. Nor did any noise reach me to disclose a thinness of partition.

Convinced of the solidity of the wall at this spot I continued higher
until I came to the end of the passage. To my surprise the conditions
here were practically the same. Had I not entered at this point I could
never have been convinced that there was an opening. From within it
defied discovery, for nothing confronted my eyes but mortared stone. I
could trace no crack, no semblance of a hinge, no secret spring. I felt
along the surface, inch by inch, with my finger tips, pressing against
each slight irregularity, but without result. My ear held to the side
wall heard nothing--apparently I was sealed in helplessly, but for the
assistance of friends without; no effort o