Part 8 (2/2)

”How queer!” Eustace broke out excitedly

”'Dorothy, Dorothy,' I shouted 'Mother--I want mother, mother, mother,' she shrieked 'Where are you? Tell us where you are,' I called 'I want mother, mother, mother,' was the only answer

'Mother is here,' I said; and again, 'Tell us where you are'

Soain, and this tiht back 'Quick, quick!

a lantern,' I simply screamed, and half a dozen were lowered instantly There was no back to the cupboard on the lower shelf

The blackness we had ness--a deep, deep hollow into the wall”

”Mother,” Eustace cried, ”a secret chamber!”

”A secret chamber that no one had ever suspected; and Dorothy it ho had found it”

”But how?” The question ca child I have ever known,” said Mrs Orban

”I don't think Dorothy knehat fear meant in those days She knew that scarcely any one ever searched the turret, because it was difficult to get away from, and it entered her small head to creep up to the Watchman's Nest and into this cupboard Whether she went to sleep waiting for us to find her, or whether she rolled over at once and fell down the little flight of steps into the secret chamber, to lie there stunned, no one knows Dorothy could not explain herself Anyhow, there she was, and the moment she caan to screaht”

”But hoas it no one had ever discovered the secret chamber before?” demanded Eustace ”It seems funny”

”You would not think so if you saw the cupboard,” Mrs Orban said

”It is a little, insignificant-looking thing--low and rather deep, and, as we then found, built into the wall The back of the lower shelf was a sliding panel; and your grandfather's theory is that the last person who used the secret cha on one's head it was impossible to see the back of the lower shelf, and no one had ever suspected such a thing”

”O Bob, Bob, wouldn't you just like to see Maze Court?” cried Eustace ”I shall never be happy till I do”

”I tell you you will all be off on Miss Dorothy's broorowled Bob ”She is a witch, and she has already bewitched you, for you can talk of nothing but England now”

”You had better go to bed, Eustace,” Mrs Orban said with a laugh

”Bob is getting quite fierce”

Bob left very early next day to get back to work As Nesta and Peter were having holidays, Eustace, of course, did no lessons, but spent the day very contentedly helping hisfurniture in the room that was to be Miss Chase's, and they scarcely sat down the whole day till evening

”Early to bed this night, my son,” said Mrs Orban as they left the dinner-table ”I expect you will sleep like a top”

He was looking sleepy already, and a quarter of an hour later went very readily to his roo entreaty to his mother that she would not sit up late

”Not I,” was the laughing rejoinder ”I proin o to bed”

This Mrs Orban did, and being very tired she fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow

For several hours a great silence reigned over the house; but even when it was broken by the soft pad-pad-pad of bare feet creeping stealthily round the veranda, the sleepers lay utterly unconscious

The stairs had not creaked under the weight of this figure; it cast no shadows, for there was no light either within the house or without At everyit halted, listened, peered in, as if it had the eyes of a cat to see with in the dark