At the mention of the word "secret" every one grows very much alive at once. Even Lady Rodney dries her tears and looks up expectantly.  
"Yes, Geoffrey and I have made a discovery,—a most important one,—and it has lain heavy on our breasts all day. Now tell them everything about last night, Geoff, from beginning to end."
 
Thus adjured,—though in truth he requires little pressing, having been with a desire since early dawn to reveal the hidden knowledge that is in his ,—Geoffrey relates to them the adventure of the night before. Indeed, he gives such a brilliant coloring to the tale that every one is stricken dumb with , Mona herself perhaps being the most astonished of all. However, like a good wife, she makes no comments, and contradicts his statements not at all, so that (emboldened by her evident determination not to with anything he may choose to say) he gives them such a story as absolutely brings down the house,—metaphorically speaking.
 
"A secret panel! Oh, how ! do, do show it to me!" cries Doatie Darling, when this marvellous has come to an end. "If there is one thing I adore, it is a secret , or a closet in a house, or a ghost."
 
"You may have the ghosts all to yourself. I sha'n't them to you. I'll have the cupboards," says Nicholas, who has grown at least ten years younger during the last hour. "Mona, show us this one."
 
Mona, drawing a chair to the panelled wall, steps up on it, and, pressing her finger on the seventh panel, it slowly rolls back, betraying the vacuum behind.
 
They all examine it with interest, Nolly being voluble on the occasion.
 
"And to think we all sat pretty nearly every evening within a yard or two of that blessed will, and never knew anything about it!" he says, at last, in a tone of unmitigated disgust.
 
"Yes, that is just what occurred to me," says Mona, nodding her head sympathetically.
 
"No? did it?" says Nolly, . "How—how satisfactory it is to know we both thought alike on even one subject!"
 
Mona, after a stare of bewilderment that dies at its birth, gives way to laughter: she is still on the chair, and looking down on Nolly, who is adoring her in the calm and open manner that belongs to him.
 
Just then Dorothy says,—
 
"Shut it up tight again, Mona, and let me try to open it." And, Mona having closed the panel again and jumped down off the chair, Doatie takes her place, and, supported by Nicholas, opens and shuts the secret door again and again to her heart's content.
 
"It is quite simple: there is no deception," says Mr. Darling, addressing the room, with gracious encouragement in his tone, shrugging his shoulders and going through all the airs and graces that belong to the orthodox French showman.
 
"It is quite necessary you should know all about it," says Nicholas, in a low tone, to Dorothy, whom he is holding carefully, as though under the mistaken impression that young women if left on chairs without support invariably fall off them. "As the future mistress here, you ought to be up to every point connected with the old place."
 
Miss Darling blushes. It is so long since she has given way to this weakness that now she does it warmly and generously, as though to make up for other opportunities neglected. She down off the chair, and, going up to Mona, surprises that heroine of the hour by upon her a warm though dainty hug.
 
"It is all your doing. How wretched we should have been had we never seen you!" she says, with tears of in her eyes.
 
Altogether it is a very exciting and pleasurable moment.
 
The panel is as good as a toy to them. They all open it by turns, and wonder over it, and rejoice in it. But Geoffrey, taking Mona aside, says , and a little gravely,—
 
"Tell me why you hesitated in your speech a while ago. Talking of Rodney's giving you the will, you said he offered to give it you if—if——What did the 'if' mean?"
 
"Come over to the window, and I will tell you," says Mrs. Geoffrey. "He—he—you must take no notice of it, Geoffrey, but he wanted to kiss me. He offered me the will for one kiss, and——"
 
"You didn't get possession of it in that way?" asks he, seizing her hands and trying to read her face.
 
"Oh, no! But listen to my story. When he saw how I hated his proposal, he very generously forgave the price, and let me have the document a free gift. That was rather good of him, was it not? because men like having their own way, you know."
 
"Very self-denying of him, indeed," says Geoffrey, with a slight , and a sigh of relief.
 
"Had I given in, would you have been very angry?" asks she regarding him earnestly.
 
"Very."
 
"Then what a mercy it is I didn't do it!" says Mona, . "I was very near it, do you know? I had actually said 'Yes,' because I could not make up my mind to lose the deed, when he let me off the bargain. But, if he had persisted, I tell you honestly I am quite sure I should have let him kiss me."
 
"Mona, don't talk like that," says Geoffrey, biting his lips.
 
"Well, but, after all, one can't be much of a friend if one can't sacrifice one's self sometimes for those one loves," says Mrs. Geoffrey, reproachfully. "You would have done it yourself in my place!"
 
"What! kiss the Australian? I'd see him—very well—that is—ahem! I certainly would not, you know," says Mr. Rodney.
 
"Well, I suppose I am wrong," says Mona, with a sigh. "Are you very angry with me, Geoff? Would you ever have forgiven me if I had done it?"
 
"I should," says Geoffrey, pressing her hands. "You would always be to me the best and truest woman alive. But—but I shouldn't have liked it."
 
"Well, neither should I!" says Mrs. Geoffrey, with conviction. "I should perfectly have hated it. But I should never have forgiven myself if he had gone away with the will."
 
"It is quite a romance," says Rodney: "I never heard anything like it before off the stage." He is speaking to the room generally. "I doubt if any one but you, Mona, would have got the will out of him. He hates the rest of us like poison."
 
"But—bless me!—how awfully he must be in love with you to resign the Towers for your sake!" says Nolly, suddenly giving words to the thought that has been him for some time.
 
As this is the idea that has haunted every one since the disclosure, and that they each and all have longed but feared to discuss, they now regard Nolly with ,—all save Lady Rodney, who, remembering her unpleasant insinuations of an hour ago, moves uneasily in her chair, and turns an uncomfortable .
 
Mona is, however, by no means disconcerted; she lifts her calm eyes to Nolly's, and answers him without even a blush.
 
"Do you know it never occurred to me until this afternoon?" she says, simply; "but now I think—I may be mistaken, but I really do think he fancies himself in love with me. A very silly fancy, of course."
 
"He must adore you; and no wonder, too," says Mr. Darling, so emphatically that every one smiles, and Jack, clapping him on the back, says,—
 
"Well done, Nolly! Go it again, old chap!"
 
"Oh, Mona, what courage you showed! Just imagine staying in the library when you found yourself face to face with a person you never expected to see, and in the dead of night, with every one sound asleep! In your case I should either have fainted or rushed back to my bedroom again as fast as my feet could carry me; and I believe," says Dorothy, with conviction, "I should so far have forgotten myself as to scream every inch of the way."
 
"I don't believe you would," says Mona. "A great shock sobers one. I forgot to be frightened until it was all over. And then the dogs were a great support."
 
"When he held the pistol to your forehead, didn't you scream then?" asks Violet.
 
"To my forehead?" says Mona, puzzled; and then she glances at Geoffrey, remembering that this was one of the slight variations with which he his tale.
 
"No, she didn't," interposes he, lightly. "She never funked it for a moment: she's got any amount of pluck. He didn............