billet placed lengthwise, which
might very well become indented at the lower end, since the whole weight
of the stone would press it down on to the edge of this other slab. So
far I was still on safe ground.

"And now how was I to proceed to reconstruct this midnight drama?
Clearly, only one could fit into the hole, and that one was Brunton. The
girl must have waited above. Brunton then unlocked the box, handed up
the contents presumably--since they were not to be found--and then--and
then what happened?

"What smouldering fire of vengeance had suddenly sprung into flame in
this passionate Celtic woman's soul when she saw the man who had wronged
her--wronged her, perhaps, far more than we suspected--in her power?
Was it a chance that the wood had slipped, and that the stone had shut
Brunton into what had become his sepulchre? Had she only been guilty of
silence as to his fate? Or had some sudden blow from her hand dashed the
support away and sent the slab crashing down into its place? Be that
as it might, I seemed to see that woman's figure still clutching at her
treasure trove and flying wildly up the winding stair, with her ears
ringing perhaps with the muffled screams from behind her and with the
drumming of frenzied hands against the slab of stone which was choking
her faithless lover's life out.

"Here was the secret of her blanched face, her shaken nerves, her peals
of hysterical laughter on the next morning. But what had been in the
box? What had she done with that? Of course, it must have been the old
metal and pebbles which my client had dragged from the mere. She had
thrown them in there at the first opportunity to remove the last trace
of her crime.

"For twenty minutes I had sat motionless, thinking the matter out.
Musgrave still stood with a very pale face, swinging his lantern and
peering down into the hole.

"'These are coins of Charles the First,' said he, holding out the few
which had been in the box; 'you see we were right in fixing our date for
the Ritual.'

"'We may find something else of Charles the First,' I cried, as the
probable meaning of the first two questions of the Ritual broke suddenly
upon me. 'Let me see the contents of the bag which you fished from the
mere.'

"We ascended to his study, and he laid the debris before me. I could
understand his regarding it as of small importance when I looked at it,
for the metal was almost black and the stones lustreless and dull. I
rubbed on