I took a long breath, closed the door from the trunk-room into the hall—­thank Heaven, I did not lock it—­and pulling the mantel-door wide open, I stepped into the chimney-room.  I had time to get a hazy view of a small portable safe, a common wooden table and a chair—­then the mantel door swung to, and clicked behind me.  I stood quite still for a moment, in the darkness, unable to comprehend what had happened.  Then I turned and beat furiously at the door with my fists.  It was closed and locked again, and my fingers in the darkness slid over a smooth wooden surface without a sign of a knob.

I was furiously angry—­at myself, at the mantel door, at everything.  I did not fear suffocation; before the thought had come to me I had already seen a gleam of light from the two small ventilating pipes in the roof.  They supplied air, but nothing else.  The room itself was shrouded in blackness.

I sat down in the stiff-backed chair and tried to remember how many days one could live without food and water.  When that grew monotonous and rather painful, I got up and, according to the time-honored rule for people shut in unknown and ink-black prisons, I felt my way around—­it was small enough, goodness knows.  I felt nothing but a splintery surface of boards, and in endeavoring to get back to the chair, something struck me full in the face, and fell with the noise of a thousand explosions to the ground.  When I had gathered up my nerves again, I found it had been the bulb of a swinging electric light, and that had it not been for the accident, I might have starved to death in an illuminated sepulcher.

I must have dozed off.  I am sure I did not faint.  I was never more composed in my life.  I remember planning, if I were not discovered, who would have my things.  I knew Liddy would want my heliotrope poplin, and she’s a fright in lavender.  Once or twice I heard mice in the partitions, and so I sat on the table, with my feet on the chair.  I imagined I could hear the search going on through the house, and once some one came into the trunk-room; I could distinctly hear footsteps.

“In the chimney!  In the chimney!” I called with all my might, and was rewarded by a piercing shriek from Liddy and the slam of the trunk-room door.

I felt easier after that, although the room was oppressively hot and enervating.  I had no doubt the search for me would now come in the right direction, and after a little, I dropped into a doze.  How long I slept I do not know.

It must have been several hours, for I had been tired from a busy day, and I wakened stiff from my awkward position.  I could not remember where I was for a few minutes, and my head felt heavy and congested.  Gradually I roused to my surroundings, and to the fact that in spite of the ventilators, the air was bad and growing worse.  I was breathing long, gasping respirations, and my face was damp and clammy.  I must have been there a long time, and the searchers