"Why?" demanded Isbel.

"Oh, there's nothing there for nobody."

"Then why waste a good lock?"…Finding that Priday did not reply, she proceeded, "I understand its real name is Ulf's Tower?"

"What name?"

"Ulf's Tower."

"I never heard that, miss. In my grandfather's time, the old 'uns used to call it the elves' Tower."

"How extraordinary! I wonder which version is the right one?"

"Well, we can be talking about all this when we get to the house," said Marshall, "if you'll get the key and let us through."

While Priday went into the lodge Isbel closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her forehead.

"I'm afraid I've a headache coming on."

"Is it the sun? If so, the sooner we get inside, the better."

"It must be the hot sun."

the gardener reappeared almost immediately with the key in his hand, and at once set about opening the carriage gate. Marshall got back into the car-Isbel had not alighted-they passed through, the gate was closed behind them, and Priday having been invited to mount, they ran smoothly up the drive, and within a minute or two were outside the house.

As they stood waiting by the door, while Priday fumbled with the lock, the throbbing of Isbel's temples grew so unendurable that she hardly knew how to remain erect.

"Worse?" inquired Marshall, with some anxiety.

"I'm afraid so. I wish he'd hurry up."

At the same moment that she spoke, the door was got open, and Marshall supported her into the cool of the hall, where she sat down. The two men remained standing beside her.

"This is better, but I fear I can't go on for a minute or two."…After a pause, she addressed Priday more conversationally: "So you know nothing about the East Room?"

"There's no 'so' about it," was the blunt, though not offensive reply. "I never said I didn't."

"But you say there's nothing there?"

"There ain't nothing there that you want, miss."

"What do I want?"

"You've come on a picnic, like…This house ain't going to be played with. P'raps it'll bite back, and bite hard."

This language, which would have sounded imbecile in another place, seemed almost like a threat to Isbel in their present situation, surrounded as they were by the solemn, silent remains of an extreme antiquity. She discontinued her questions. Marshall, however, who preserved his common-sense, took up the story.

"What exactly do you mean by that, Priday?"

"Gentleman like you, sir, can go anywhere about the house. You'll see or hear nothing, and it won't hurt you. Young female nerves is a very different matter. P'raps those who start a funny jhourney can't always come back when they like…The young lady's got a headache, you say. That's a good enough excuse. Let her rest here, sir, while you and me go up to see what you want to see."

"Oh, rot!…You want to come, don't you, Isbel?"

"Very much. But really, I'm physically incapable of moving. My head gets worse instead of better."

"Then, shall I stop with you, or would you like me to get the job over? I could be up and town again in ten minutes. Say what you'd like."

"Yes, please go. Take Mr. Priday with you. I think complete silence and solitude may do me good. Talking makes it worse."

"I wish to heaven I could do something for you!…You're sure you don't mind being left?"

She gave a feeble, reassuring smile. "Good gracious! I'm not a child."

Marshall took his departure reluctantly upstairs, accompanied by Priday, whose legs, however, stiffened by a lifetime of digging, were soon unable to keep pace with those of the young underwriter.

Isbel now kept shutting and reopening her eyes. The repose, silence, and gloom began to exercise a soothing effect on her nerves, and she had not sat there two minutes before her head became easier. Everything in the hall was as it had been on the occasion of their previous visit. The dark, dignified, polished woodwork was solemnly illuminated as before, by the golden, blue and crimson rays from the mediaeval windows, and there was the same deathly stillness.

Suddenly it occurred to her that she was looking at something the existence of which she had never yet realised. It was a part of the structure of the hall, and she must certainly have seen it before, but, if so, it had completely escaped her observation. It was a second flight of uncarpeted stairs, leading upwards out of the hall, by the side of the ancient fireplace. It did not strike her that there was anything odd about these stairs; they were quite prosaic and real; the only curious circumstance was that hitherto she should have overlooked them in so miraculous a manner.

They went straight forward and up through an aperture in the wall. About a dozen steps were visible, but the top was out of sight. It immediately flashed across her mind that by ascending them she would set foot in a heretofore unexplored part of the house. In the excitement of the discovery she forgot her headache. She got up, stood for a moment in doubt, wondering whether she should call out to Marshall, and then, deciding that her voice would not carry so far, and that it would be time enough to acquaint him with her find on his reappearance, she resolved in the meantime to do a little pioneering on her own account. Not once did it enter her breain to identify these stairs with those of Judge. They appeared in a different quarter of the house, and, moreover, were too solid and tangible to conjure up the faintest suspicion of anything supernatural. She was not in the least alarmed; merely intensely surprised and curious.

Deliberately, but with a slightly agitated pulse, she ascended the steps one by one, occasionally turning to look back down at the hall. Something in the whole proceeding occurred to her as mysterious, though she was unable to explain to herself just what it was. The steps were of a dark, shining wood, which resembled teak; there were, from bottom to top, seventeen of them. There was no handrail, but the walls enclosed the well of the staircase on either side.

At the head of the flight she found herself standing in a little room, about fifteen feet square, empty of furniture, and lighted from above, although no skylight was visible. The floor, walls, and ceiling were of the same dark, handsome wood as the staircase. It was a kind of ante-chamber. There was nothing to see there, and nowhere to sit down, but there were doors leading out of it. There were three of them; one in the centre of each of the three walls, the head of the stairs occupying the centre of the fourth. All were of plain, undecorated wood, investing them with an almost primitive air. All three were closed.

Isbel hesitated. She wished to proceed, but those closed doors seemed to hold a sort of menace. She now remembered that Mrs. Priday had omitted to show these rooms with the rest of the house-or was it that she had thought they had already seen them prior to her arrival? Or, again, like the East Room, they might be locked; they, too, might contain undesirable mysteries…On that point, of course, she would satisfy herself at once…if it were really possible to go any further…

Could it have been something of the same feeling that leads a woman to scrutinise an envelope addressed in an unfamiliar handwriting for several moments before opening it, which induced Isbel to pause for so long outside those doors? It was naturally absurd to suppose that she was actually frightened-so she told herself-and yet, somehow, she could not bring herself to adopt the sensible plan of peeping in…The fact was, there was something not quite right about them. They were unlike other doors. And not only were they unlike other doors, they were unlike each other. In that fact, perhaps, consisted their chief strangeness. The door in the middle, which she faced, looked noble, stately, and private, whereas the right-hand one had-she could not describe it to herself-a dangerous, waiting appearance, as though the room it belonged to were inhabited and the door at any moment might be flung suddenly open. As for that on the left, most likely it opened on to a passage-way-that was the impression it gave her…Perhaps all this hypersensitiveness on her part had its origin in the mutual position of the walls.