Cecil hesitated for a moment.  He had drifted so easily into the position of head of the house.  It was so natural.  He felt that he filled the place so perfectly.

“I have,” he admitted, “but he counts, I am sorry to say, for very little.  You are never likely to come across him—­nor any other civilized person.”

There was a subtle indication in his tone of a desire not to pursue the subject.  His guests naturally respected it.  There was a moment’s silence.  Then Cecil once more leaned forward.  He hesitated for a moment, even after his lips had parted, as though for some reason he were inclined, after all, to remain silent, but the consciousness that every one was looking at him and expecting him to speak induced him to continue with what, after all, he had suddenly, and for no explicit reason, hesitated to say.

“You spoke, Miss Le Mesurier,” he began, “of looking over the house, and, as I told you, there is very little in it worth seeing.  And yet I can show you something, not in the house itself, but connected with it, which you might find interesting.”

The Princess leaned forward in her chair.

“This sounds so interesting,” she murmured.  “What is it, Cecil?  A haunted chamber?”

Their host shook his head.

“Something far more tangible,” he answered, “although in its way quite as remarkable.  Hundreds of years ago, smuggling on this coast was not only a means of livelihood for the poor, but the diversion of the rich.  I had an ancestor who became very notorious.  His name seems to have been a by-word, although he was never caught, or if he was caught, never punished.  He built a subterranean way underneath the grounds, leading from the house right to the mouth of one of the creeks.  The passage still exists, with great cellars for storing smuggled goods, and a room where the smugglers used to meet.”

Jeanne looked at him with parted lips.

“You can show me this?” she asked, “the passage and the cellars?”

Cecil nodded.

“I can,” he answered.  “Quite a weird place it is, too.  The walls are damp, and the cellars themselves are like the vaults of a cathedral.  All the time at high tide you can hear the sea thundering over your head.  To-morrow, if you like, we will get torches and explore them.”

“I should love to,” Jeanne declared.  “Can you get out now at the other end?”

Cecil nodded.

“The passage,” he said, “starts from a room which was once the library, and ends half-way up the only little piece of cliff there is.  It is about thirty feet from the ground, but they had a sort of apparatus for pulling up the barrels, and a rope ladder for the men.  The preventive officers would see the boat come up the creek, and would march down from the village, only to find it empty.  Of course, they suspected all the time where the things went, but they could not prove it, and as my ancestor was a magistrate and an important man they did not dare to search the house.”