“If you don’t mind,” said Dicky, “I would rather not go after them.  I think it’s a waste of time.  Personally I am quite contented to have rejoined you.  At one time I thought I shouldn’t be able to, and the idea was trying.”

“We wouldn’t dream of letting you go again,” said Mrs. Portheris and I simultaneously.  “But,” continued Mrs. Portheris, “we will all go in search of the others.  They can’t be very far away.  There is nothing so alarming as standing still.”

We proceeded along the passage in the direction of our last glimpse of our friends and relatives, passing a number of most interesting inscriptions, which we felt we had not time to pause and decipher, and came presently to a divergence which none of us could remember.  Half of the passage went down three steps, and turned off to the left under an arch, and the other half climbed two, and immediately lost itself in blackness of darkness.  In our hesitation Dicky suddenly stooped to a trace of pink in the stone leading upward, and picked it up—­three rose petals.

“That settles it,” he exclaimed.  “Isa—­Miss Portheris was wearing a rose.  I gave it to her myself.”

“Did you, indeed,” said Isabel’s mamma coldly.  “My dear child, how anxious she will be!”

“Oh, I should think not,” I said hopefully.  “I am sure she can trust Mr. Dod to take care of himself—­and of us, too, for the matter of that.”

“Mr. Dod!” exclaimed Mrs. Portheris with indignation.  “My poor child’s anxiety will be for her mother.”

And we let it go at that.  But Dicky put the rose petals in his pocket with the toe-bone, and hopefully remarked that there would be no difficulty about finding her now.  I mentioned that I had parents also, at that moment, lost in the Catacombs, but he did not apologize.

The midnight of the place, as we walked on, seemed to deepen, and its silence to grow more profound.  The tombs passed us in solemn grey ranges, one above the other—­the long tombs of the grown-up people, and the shorter ones of the children, and the very little ones of the babies.  The air held a concentrated dolor of funerals sixteen centuries old, and the four dim stone walls seemed to have crept closer together.  “I think I will take your arm, Mr. Dod,” said Mrs. Portheris, and “I think I will take your other arm, Mr. Dod,” said I.

“Thank you,” replied Dicky, “I should be glad of both of yours,” which may look ambiguous now, but we quite understood it at the time.  It made rather uncomfortable walking in places, but against that overwhelming majority of the dead it was comforting to feel ourselves a living unit.  We stumbled on, taking only the most obvious turnings, and presently the passage widened into another little square chamber.  “More bishops!” groaned Dicky, holding up his candle.