his shoeless feet
before he set them down; once or twice he stepped into a little icy pool,
which had collected through some crack in the vaulting overhead; once,
too, he slipped on a lump of something wet and shapeless; and thought
even then of Mary's suspicions the night before. He pushed on, shivering
now with cold and excitement, through what seemed the interminable
tunnel, until at last his outstretched hands touched wood before him. He
had not seen this end of the passage for nearly two years, and he
wondered if he could remember the method of opening, and gave a gulp of
horror at the thought that he might not. But there had been no reason to
make a secret of the inside of the door, and he presently found a button
and drew it; it creaked rustily, but gave, and the door with another pull
opened inwards, and there was a faint glimmer of light. Then he
remembered that the entrances to the tunnel at either end were exactly on
the same system; and putting out his hands felt the slope of the
underside of the staircase, cutting diagonally across the opening of the
passage. He slid himself on to the boarding sideways, and drew the
brickwork towards him till the spring snapped, and lay there to consider
before he went farther.

First he ran over in his mind the construction of the garden-house.

The basement in which he was lying corresponded to the cellar under the
house from which he had come, and ran the whole length of the building,
about forty feet by twenty. It was a large empty chamber, where nothing
of any value was kept. He remembered last time he was here seeing a heap
of tiles in one corner, with a pile of disused poles; pieces of rope, and
old iron in another. The stairs led up through an ordinary trap-door into
what was the ground-floor of the house. This, too, was one immense room,
with four latticed windows looking on to the garden, and one with opaque
glass on to the lane at the back; and a great door, generally kept
locked, for rather more valuable things were kept here, such as the
garden-roller, flower-pots, and the targets for archery. Then a light
staircase led straight up from this room to the next floor, which was
divided into two, both of which, so far as Anthony remembered, were
empty. Mr. Buxton had thought of letting his gardeners sleep there when
he had at first built this immense useless summer-house; but he had
ultimately built a little gardener's cottage adjoining it. The two
fantastic towe