box at the theatre, beside the high altar of the chapel.

So small was the room that it was filled by our little party of six; yet I
felt there another presence which none of us could see--a grey ghost
agonising for his sins, through a bleak eternity.

Monica felt it too, for she shivered, and exclaimed, "Let us go. This room
seems haunted with evil. I can't breathe in it."

"But now for the secret," said Carmona. "Would you guess at any hidden
opening in these walls?"

We stared critically about, and I began to test the wainscot, but the Duke
stopped me. "You'd never find the place," he said; "and I promised the
person who told me not to give away the secret; but that doesn't prevent
me from showing you what's behind the door."

He moved close to the wall, stood for an instant, then stepped back, as we
heard a slight clicking sound, like the snap of a spring on an old
box-lid. At the same time a part of the wainscoting rolled away, leaving a
narrow aperture.

It was dark on the other side, but Carmona took a gold match-box from his
pocket and struck a bunch of little wax _fosforos_.

"Philip had this cell made for a place of penance and self-torture," he
said, "and it's just as it used to be during his lifetime, before he was
too ill to go in any more. His twisted wire scourge is there, with his
blood on it, his horsehair shirt, and a girdle bristling with small, sharp
spikes. Will you have a look, Lady Vale-Avon? I can't go with you, for the
cell isn't big enough for two, but I'll hold the matches at the door."

Lady Vale-Avon is of the type of woman who enjoys seeing such things as
these; and though she would not have tortured herself had she lived in
feudal days, I am sure she would have dined calmly over an underground
dungeon where an enemy--an inconvenient wretch like me, for
instance--suffered the pangs of starvation.

She squeezed into the cell, descending a couple of steps, remained for two
or three minutes, and came out, pronouncing it extremely interesting.

"Now, Lady Monica, it's your turn," said Carmona; but Monica drew back, "I
hate seeing torture-things," said she, "and blood, even wicked old blood
like Philip's, which I used to think, when I read about him in history,
I'd love to shed. No, I won't go in, thank you."

Pilar also refused, for if she went she would certainly have a nightmare
and dream she was walled up; thus there remained only the three men to
inspect the hidden horrors.

Ca