quiet you've only got to kick your foot against a stone or drop a tool,
and likely as not you'll wake the whole blessed place."

"Wake," repeated Ella, noticing the word, and she repeated it with
emphasis. "Why do you say 'wake'?"

CHAPTER XX. ELLA'S WARNING

Ella did not say anything more, and in their character of tourists
visiting the place, they were admitted to the Abbey and passed on though
its magnificent rooms, where was stored a collection rich and rare even
for one of the stateliest homes of England.

"What a wonderful place!" Ella sighed wistfully. Yet she could not enjoy
the spectacle of all these treasures as she would have done at another
time, for she was always watching Allen, who hung about a good deal, and
seemed to look more at the locks of the cases that held some of the
more valuable of the objects shown than at the things themselves,
and generally spent fully half the time in each room at the window,
admiring, the view, he said; but for quite another reason, Ella
suspected.

"I shall speak when I get back," she said to herself, pale and
resolute. "I don't care what happens; I don't care if I have to tell
mother--perhaps she knows already. Anyhow, I shall speak."

Having come to this determination, she grew cheerful and more interested
apparently in what they were seeing, as well as less watchful of her
companion. When, presently, they left the house to go into the gardens,
it happened that they noticed an old gentleman walking at a little
distance behind a gate marked "Private," and leaning on the arm of a
tall, thin, clean-shaven man of middle-age.

"Lord Chobham, the old gentleman," whispered a tourist, who was standing
near. "I saw him once in the House of Lords. That's his secretary with
him, Mr. Dunsmore, one of the family; he manages everything now the old
gentleman is getting so feeble."

Ella walked on frowning and a little worried, for she thought she had
seen the secretary before and yet could not remember where. Soon she
noticed Dunn, who had apparently been obeying Deede Dawson's orders to
look round outside and get to know the lie of the land.

He seemed at present to be a good deal interested in Lord Chobham and
his companion, for he went and leaned on the gate and stared at them so
rudely that one or two of the other tourists noticed it and frowned at
him. But he took no notice, and presently, as if not seeing that the
gate was marked "Private," he pushed it open and