Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/204

MY LADY OF THE SOUTH "But who told you?"

"Calvert Dunn; but that was all he told—merely that such things existed."

"Even that was enough to ruin their usefulness when repeated to a Yankee. I am surprised at you, Jean."

"Miss Denslow gave me no information of value," I hastened to explain. "The mere knowledge that such a place exists means nothing so long as I am unable to trace it. I have asked her nothing, but I do ask you—is there such a hidden entry, such a secret room, and may I search them?"

The man and the soldier seemed warring in his mind before he could reply, but the man won.

"Yes, they exist; built with the house, for protection against feudists, and with no thought of war. But they can be of no service to you, as I came that way entering the house and met no one."

"You bore a light?"

"No; the passage is a familiar one."

"Yet you might have passed some one skulking there in the dark; some one who may have left behind evidence of his presence. It seems to me, Colonel Donald, that is where we should look; that justice to me demands such investigation."

"But how could any one who is an enemy to the occupants of this house have discovered the passage?"

"That I do not know, but some one has certainly been here to-night. Whoever it was, he came by way of none of the ordinary entrances. You must acknowledge that. If I am not the guilty man, and I swear in the presence of [ 190 ]