ople to lean on
each other in the ordinary vicissitudes of life, and even under the
circumstances I was aware that Mrs. Portheris was a great deal to
support, but there was comfort in every pound of her. At last a faint
light foreshadowed itself in the direction of Dicky's disappearance, and
grew stronger, and was resolved into a candle and a young man, and Mr.
Dod, very much paler than when he left, was with us again. Mrs.
Portheris and I started apart as if scientifically impelled, and
exclaimed simultaneously, "Where is Brother Demetrius?"

"Nowhere in this graveyard," said Dicky. "He's well upstairs by this
time. Must have taken a short cut. I lost sight of him in about two
seconds."

"That was very careless of you, Mr. Dod," said Mrs. Portheris, "very
careless indeed. Now we have no option, I suppose, but to rejoin the
others; and where are they?"

They were certainly not where they had been. Not a trace nor an
echo--not a trace nor an echo--of anything, only parallelograms of
darkness in every direction, and our little circle of light flickering
on the tombs of Anterus, and Fabianus, and Entychianus, and
Epis--martyr--and we three within it, looking at each other.

"If you don't mind," said Dicky, "I would rather not go after them. I
think it's a waste of time. Personally I am quite contented to have
rejoined you. At one time I thought I shouldn't be able to, and the idea
was trying."

"We wouldn't _dream_ of letting you go again," said Mrs. Portheris and I
simultaneously. "But," continued Mrs. Portheris, "we will all go in
search of the others. They can't be very far away. There is nothing so
alarming as standing still."

We proceeded along the passage in the direction of our last glimpse of
our friends and relatives, passing a number of most interesting
inscriptions, which we felt we had not time to pause and decipher, and
came presently to a divergence which none of us could remember. Half of
the passage went down three steps, and turned off to the left under an
arch, and the other half climbed two, and immediately lost itself in
blackness of darkness. In our hesitation Dicky suddenly stooped to a
trace of pink in the stone leading upward, and picked it up--three rose
petals.

"That settles it," he exclaimed. "Isa--Miss Portheris was wearing a
rose. I gave it to her myself."

"Did you, indeed," said Isabel's mamma coldly. "My dear child, how
anxious she will be!"

"Oh, I should think not," I said h