When Jane turned, and ran back down the dark passage, she had just the one thought—to get away out of earshot. That she, or any one but Anthony Luttrell, should have heard that breaking tone in Raymond’s voice shocked her profoundly. She felt guilty of having upon the innermost sacred places of another woman’s life. It shocked and moved her very deeply. Tears blinded her, and she ran into the dark without a thought for herself. It was only when, looking back, she could not see even a of outside that she halted and began to think what she must do.  
The practical was never very long in with Jane. She began to plan rapidly, even whilst she dried her eyes. She would feel her way to the foot of the stairs. If she kept the left-hand wall, there would be very little risk of losing her way. Only one passage had led off in that direction and that one at right angles, so that she would not run the risk of going down it unawares. When she came to the foot of the stairs, she would turn back again and wait in the first cross-passage until Raymond passed. Then she would follow her up the steps and watch to see how the door opened on this side.
 
 
Jane was very much pleased with her plan when she had made it. It made her feel very intelligent and efficient. She began to put it into practice at once, walking quite quickly with her right hand feeling in front of her and the left just brushing the wall. Of course the stone was to touch—cold, damp, slimy. She was sure the slime was green. Once she jabbed her finger on a rock splinter, and once she touched something soft which squirmed. The dark seemed to get darker and darker, and the silence was like a weight that she could hardly carry.
 
Her little glow of self-satisfaction died down and left her coldly afraid. Then, quite suddenly, she came to the cross-passage. Her fingers slid from the stone into black air, groped, stretched out, and touched—something—warm, alive.
 
Jane’s scream went echoing down the dark. A hand came up and caught her wrist, another fell upon her right shoulder.
 
“Jane, for the Lord’s sake, !” said Henry’s voice.
 
Jane caught her breath as if she were going to scream again.
 
“Henry, you utter, utter, utter beast!” she said, and incontinently burst into tears.
 
Henry put his arms round her, and Jane wept as she had never wept in her life, her face tightly pressed against the rough tweed of his coat sleeve, her whole figure shaking with tumultuous .
 
Presently, when she was mopping her eyes and feeling quite ashamed, she exclaimed:
 
“I had just touched a slug, and you were worse. I didn’t think anything could be worse than a slug, but you were.”
 
Henry had kissed the back of her neck twice while she was crying. Now he managed to kiss a little bit of damp cheek.
 
 
“You’re not to,” said Jane, in a whisper.
 
“Why not?” said Henry, with the utmost . “You don’t mind it, you know you don’t.” He did it again. “Jane, if you had minded, you wouldn’t have clung to me like that. Jane darling, you do like me a little bit, don’t you?”
 
“Oh, I don’t! And I didn’t cling, I didn’t.”
 
“You did. Take it from me, you did.”
 
Jane made a very slight effort to detach herself. It was unsuccessful because Henry was a good deal stronger than she was and he held her firmly.
 
“Henry, I really hate you,” she said. “Any one might cling, if they thought it was a slug or Mr. Ember and then found it wasn’t.” Then, after a pause, “Henry, when a person says they hate you, it’s usual to let go of them.”
 
“My book of etiquette,” said Henry firmly, “says—page 163, para. ii.—‘A profession of is more compromising than a of love; a woman who expresses hatred in words has love in her heart.’ And I really did see that in a book yesterday, so it’s bound to be true, isn’t it?—isn’t it, darling?”
 
“Henry, I told you to stop,” said Jane; “I simply won’t be kissed by a man I’m not engaged to.”
 
“Oh, but we are,” said Henry. “I mean you will, won’t you?”
 
Jane came a very little nearer.
 
“We should quarrel,” she said, “quite dreadfully. You know there are some people you feel you’d never quarrel with, not if you lived with them a hundred years; and there are others, well, you know from the very first minute that you’d quarrel with them and keep on doing it.”
 
 
“Like we’re doing now?” said Henry hopefully. Jane nodded. Of course Henry could not see the nod, but he felt it because it bumped his chin.
 
“All really happily married people quarrel,” he said. “The really hopeless marriages are the polite ones. And you know you’ll like quarrelling with me, Jane. We’ll make up in between whiles, and there won’t be a dull moment. Will you?”
 
“I don’t mind to quarrel,” said Jane. “No, Henry, you’re not to kiss me any more. I’m here on business, if you’re not. How did you get here? And why were you here, pretending to be a slug?”
 
“Suppose you tell me first,” said Henry. “How did you get here?”
 
“I followed Lady Heritage. I’ve got an immense amount to tell you.”
 
She leaned against Henry’s arm in the darkness, and in a soft, eager voice:
 
“It really began yesterday. I woke up and couldn’t go to sleep again, so I came down for a book, and just as I was at the drawing-room door, I saw Lady Heritage come out of the corner by Willoughby Luttrell’s picture. Did you know there was a door there, Henry?”
 
“Yes. Go on.”
 
“She went upstairs, and I was trying to screw up my courage to cross the hall when Mr. Ember came down the stairs and disappeared into the same corner. Of course then I knew there must be a door there, so I made up my mind to come down to-night and look for it.”
 
 
“Jane, wait,” said Henry. “You say Ember came down the stairs and went through the door. Do you think Lady Heritage left it open? Or do you think he watched her come out, and then found the way for himself?”
 
“No,” said Jane; “neither. I mean I’m quite sure it wasn’t like that at all. She shut the door, for I heard it, and it certainly wasn’t the first time Mr. Ember had been that way. Why, he even put his light out before he came to the wall, and any one would have to know the way very well to find it in the dark.”
 
“Yes. Then what happened?”
 
“I went back to bed. Henry, you simply haven’t any idea how much I hated going up those stairs. There was a fiendish patch of moonlight, and I felt as if I couldn’t go through it and perhaps be on by some one just round the corner. If it hadn’t been for the housemaids finding me in the morning, I believe I should just have stuck where I was.”
 
Henry’s arm a little.
 
“Well, to-night I hid in the study quite early, but I had hardly got there when Lady Heritage came down. I watched to see what she did, and as soon as she had gone through the door and shut it, I hauled that great heavy chair al............