here was a space behind. The
pile was too high for her to see over it, but by going down on her
hands and knees where the sloping roof was too low for her to stoop,
she found she could creep round it. It was the kind of thing a child
would have done, but what was Beth but a child? On the other side of
the pile it was almost dark. She could see something, however, when
she stood up, which looked like a mark on the whitewash, and on
running her hand over it she discovered it to be a narrow door flush
with the wall. There was no handle or latch to it, but there was a key
which had rusted in the keyhole and was not to be turned. The door was
not locked, however, and Beth pushed it open, and found herself in a
charming little room with a fireplace at one end of it, and opposite,
at the other end, a large bow window. Beth was puzzled to understand
how there came to be a room there at all. Then she recollected a sort
of tower there was at the side of the house, which formed a deep
embrasure in the drawing-room, a dressing-room to the visitor's room,
and a bath-room on the floor above. The window looked out on the
garden at the back of the house. A light iron balcony ran round it,
the rail of which was so thickly covered with ivy that very little of
the window was visible from below. Beth had noticed it, however, only
she thought it was a dummy, and so also did Dan. The little room
looked bright and cosy with the afternoon sun streaming in. It seemed
to have been occupied at one time by some person of fastidious taste,
judging by what furniture remained--a square Chippendale table with
slender legs, two high-backed chairs covered with old-fashioned
tapestry, and a huge mahogany bookcase of the same period, with glass
doors above and cupboards below. The high white mantelpiece, adorned
with vases and festoons of flowers, was of Adam's design, and so also
was the dado and the cornice. The walls were painted a pale warm pink.
A high brass fender, pierced, surrounded the fireplace, and there were
a poker, tongs, and shovel to match, and a small brass scuttle still
full of coals. There were ashes in the grate, too, as if the room had
only lately been occupied. The boards were bare, but white and
well-fitting, and in one corner of the room there was a piece of
carpet rolled up.

Beth dropped on to one of the dusty chairs, and looked round.
Everything about her was curiously familiar, and her first impression
was that she had been th