they hadn't been disturbed for fifty
years. The wide, fan-shaped window looked out on a formal rose garden.

And then, all at once, Radmore's quick eye detected a concealed door in
the wall, on which there were encrusted the sham book titles often to be
found on the doors of an old country home library. Quickly he went across
and, opening it, found it gave straight on to a corkscrew staircase.

Filled with a queer sense of adventure, he motioned Betty to go up first,
in front of him.

The staircase led up to a tiny lobby, into which opened a most beautiful
bedchamber, a replica as to shape and size of the library beneath.

The furniture there interested Betty, for she had never seen anything
like it, except once in a chateau near Arras. It was First Empire, and on
the pin-cushion, lying on the ornate dressing-table, someone had written
in a fine Italian hand on an envelope, the words: "This room was
furnished from Paris in 1810. The bed is a replica of a bed made for the
Empress Josephine."

They went on through many of the rooms on the upper floor, full to-day of
still, sunny late autumn charm.

Radmore scarcely spoke at all during their curious progress through the
empty house, and Betty still felt as if in a dream. She had asked herself
again and again if he could really be thinking of buying this stately
mansion.

The mere possibility of such a thing meant that he must be thinking of
marrying Mrs. Crofton, and also that he must be much richer than any of
them knew.

At last they came down a wide staircase which terminated in a corridor
leading into the circular hall, and then it was Betty who broke what was
becoming an oppressive silence:

"Shall we go on and see the kitchen and the servants' quarters, Godfrey?"

"No; they're sure to be all right."

Again came what seemed to Betty a long, unnatural silence.

"Do you really like the house?" he asked at last.

"I like it very much," she said frankly. "But wouldn't it cost a
tremendous lot of money, Godfrey? It would be a pity not to buy it
exactly as it stands. It all seems so--so--"

"I know! As if the furniture had grown there," he broke in.

"So beautiful and so--so unusual," Betty went on diffidently.

"I'm afraid I'm a commonplace person, Betty. I like a room to be
beautiful, but I like comfort, and I think this is a very comfortable
house. I feel, somehow, as if happy, good people had lived here. I like
that, too."

He was standing by one of