“I was going out by another way,” she said, shortly, but a shudder gave the lie to the declaration.

“Do you know where that hidden passage leads to?” he asked, looking up into her face.  She was brushing cobwebs from her dress.

“To a cave near the old church,” she replied, triumphantly.

“Blissful ignorance!” he laughed.  “It doesn’t lead anywhere as it now exists.  You see, there was a cave-in a few decades ago—­”

“Is that the one that caved in?” she cried, in dismay.

“So Saxondale tells me.”

“And—­and how did the—­the—­how did that awful thing get in there?” she asked, a new awe coming over her.

“Well, that’s hard to tell.  Bob says the door has never been opened, to his knowledge.  Nobody knows the secret combination, or whatever you call it.  The chances are that the poor fellow whose bones we saw got locked in there and couldn’t get out.  So he died.  That’s what might have happened to you, you know.”

“Oh, you brute!  How can you suggest such a thing?” she cried, and she longed to sit close beside him, even though he was her most detested enemy.

“Oh, I would have saved you from that fate, never fear.”

“But you could not have known that I was inside the passage.”

“Do you suppose I came down here on a pleasure trip?”

“You—­you don’t mean that you knew I was here?”

“Certainly; it is why I came to this blessed spot.  It is my duty to see that no harm comes to you, Dorothy.”

“I prefer to be called Miss Garrison,” coldly.

“If you had been merely Miss Garrison to me, you’d be off on a bridal tour with Ravorelli at this moment, instead of enjoying a rather unusual tete-a-tete with me.  Seriously, Dorothy, you will be wise if you submit to the inevitable until fate brings a change of its own accord.  You are brave and determined, I know, and I love you more than ever for this daring attempt to get out of Craneycrow, but you don’t know what it might have brought you to.  Good heavens, no one knows what dangers lie in those awful passages.  They have not been used in a hundred years.  Think of what you were risking.  Don’t, for your own sake, try anything so uncertain again.  I knew you were down here, but no one else knows.  How you opened that secret door, I do not know, but we both know what happened to one other poor wretch who solved the mystery.”

“I didn’t solve it, really I didn’t.  I don’t know how it happened.  It just opened, that’s all, and then I—­oh, it was terrible!” She covered her eyes with her hands and he leaped to his feet.

“Don’t think about it, Dorothy.  It was enough to frighten you to death.  Gad, I should have gone mad had I been in your place.”  He put his arm about her shoulder, and for a moment she offered no resistance.  Then she remembered who and what he was and imperiously lifted angry eyes to his.

“The skeleton may have been a gentleman in his day, Mr. Quentin.  Even now, as I think of him in horror, he could not be as detestable as you.  Open this door, sir!” she said, her voice quivering with indignation.