bored traveler, explorer, gold-seeker, soldier of fortune, actually as
pleased as a girl over the prospect of arranging his room! He called
after him, "Sylvester!"

"Yes."

"I say, if you could, you know, just try to interest these people
to-night with some of your adventures--something told SERIOUSLY, you
know, as if you really were in earnest--I'd be awfully obliged to you.
The fact is,--you'll excuse me,--but they think you don't come up to
your reputation."

"They want a story?"

"Yes,--one of your experiences."

"I'll give them one. Ta-ta!"

For the rest of the day Uncle Sylvester was invisible, although his
active presence in his room was betrayed by the sound of hammering and
moving of furniture. As the remainder of the party were skating on
the lake, this eccentricity was not remarked except by one,--Marie du
Page,--who on pretense of a slight cold had stayed at home. But with her
suspicions of the former night, she had determined to watch the singular
relative of her friend. Added to a natural loyalty to the Lanes, she
was moved by a certain curiosity and fascination towards this
incomprehensible man.

The house was very quiet when she stole out of her room and passed
softly along the corridor; she examined the wall carefully to discover
anything that might have excited the visitor's attention. There were a
few large engravings hanging there; could he have designed to replace
them by some others? Suddenly she was struck with the distinct
conviction that the wall of the corridor did not coincide with the wall
of his room as represented by the line of the door. There was certainly
a space between the two walls unaccounted for. This was undoubtedly what
had attracted HIS attention; but what BUSINESS was it of his?

She reflected that she had seen in the wall of the conservatory an old
closed staircase, now used as shelves for dried herbs and seeds, which
she had been told was the old-time communication between the garden
and Grandfather Lane's study,--the room now occupied by the stranger.
Perhaps it led still farther, and thus accounted for the space.
Determined to satisfy herself, she noiselessly descended to the
conservatory. There, surely, was the staircase,--a narrow flight of
wooden steps encumbered with packages of herbs,--losing itself in upper
darkness. By the aid of a candle she managed to grope and pick her way
up step by step. Then she paused. The staircase had abruptly ended on
the level