She reached up eagerly.

"No," she said, "something must have struck against it and caught it,
for so far from being rough here, it's hollow. I can put my finger into
it; it is one of the openings between the beams." They went on talking
while Elizabeth's finger was unconsciously tapping the wall through the
torn hanging. All at once she broke off in the midst of what she was
saying to cry, "Why, there certainly is something very strange here; it
is like the canvas of a picture. Touch it, and see if it does not feel
so to you."

Edmonson reached up his hand as she withdrew hers. His eyes seemed to
scintillate as he felt the surface of the canvas under his finger; his
face flushed deeply; it was with effort that he restrained a jubilant
cry, and his tones betrayed a triumph that he could not hide, while
excitement broke through his barriers of measured words.

"Really, we must look into this," he said. "This may be El Dorado
to--some of us. Let us wager, Mistress Royal, whom it most concerns,
you, or me."

"I suppose it's some old family portrait and belongs to the Colonel,"
she answered.

"Yes, I suppose so," he said, waiving the question of the wager as she
had done. "Don't you propose to ask him?"

Elizabeth looked amazed, then flushed deeply as she realized her
imprudence in having spoken of the canvas.

"Certainly not," she answered. "I don't see how what Colonel Archdale
has on his walls concerns me."

"I should think a possible daughter-in-law would feel somewhat
differently." She winced, then answered coolly; "She ought not."

"Well, at least, _I_ am curious. I own it. I must see what we have
unearthed here. Won't you ask the Colonel to show us his private
portrait gallery? He will do anything for you, I notice."

"Certainly not," she answered.

"Certainly he won't do everything for you, or certainly you will not ask
him--which?" insisted Edmonson.

"Both. I shall never test him, and I shall make no comments on what I
may find on his walls. Nor will you, Master Edmonson, for no gentleman
would."

"Do you object to my seeing it?" She looked at him wonderingly.

"Why should I, if it were open? But I will tell you what I do object to,
to my coming here and seeming to pry upon--the family. I wish it had
been somebody else instead of me who had found it, or that it had never
been found at all. I beg you will spare me, Master Edmonson," And she
looked at him with the rare entreaty of a proud nature.