ake me to join my
father in Lancaster jail. Do you think I would run away?"

"No, sir, I don't think you would run away. I am sure you would not
run away from fear, but I would not let them lay hands on me, until
I had thought the matter well over. You might be able to do more
good to Sir Marmaduke were you free, than you could do if you were
caged up with him. He has enemies, we know, who are doing their
best to ruin him, and, as you see, they are anxious that you, too,
should be shut up within four walls."

"You are right, Banks. At any rate, I will ride back and consult
Mr. Jervoise. Besides, he ought to be warned, for he, too, may be
arrested on the same charge. How did you get away without being
noticed?"

"I said that I felt ill--and I was not speaking falsely--at Sir
Marmaduke's arrest, and would lie down. They are keeping a sharp
lookout at the stables, and have a soldier at each door, to see
that no one leaves the house, but I went out by that old passage
that comes out among the ruins of the monastery."

"I know, Banks. My father showed it to me, three years ago."

"I shall go back that way again, sir, and no one will know that I
have left the house. You know the trick of the sliding panel,
Master Charles?"

"Yes, I know it, and if I should want to come into the house again,
I will come that way, Banks."

"Here is a purse," the butler said. "You may want money, sir.
Should you want more, there is a store hidden away, in the hiding
place under the floor of the Priest's Chamber, at the other end of
the passage. Do you know that?"

"I know the Priest's Chamber of course, because you go through that
to get to the long passage, but I don't know of any special hiding
place there."

"Doubtless, Sir Marmaduke did not think it necessary to show it you
then, sir, but he would have done it later on, so I do not consider
that I am breaking my oath of secrecy in telling you. You know the
little narrow loophole in the corner?"

"Yes, of course. There is no other that gives light to the room. It
is hidden from view outside by the ivy."

"Well, sir, you count four bricks below that, and you press hard on
the next, that is the fifth, then you will hear a click, then you
press hard with your heel at the corner, in the angle of the flag
below, and you will find the other corner rise. Then you get hold
of it and lift it up, and below there is a stone chamber, two feet
long and about eighteen inches wide and deep.