Then they carried the sheet to the altar, and thence
swept into it every little particle, back to its mother dust. That
done, Donal knotted the sheet together, and they began to look
around them.
Desirous of discovering where the main entrance to the chapel had
been, Donal spied under the windows a second door, and opened it
with difficulty. It disclosed a passage below the stair, three steps
lower than the floor of the chapel, parallel with the wall, and
turning, at right angles under the gallery. Here he saw signs of an
obliterated door in the outer wall, but could examine no farther for
the present.
In the meantime his companions had made another sort of discovery:
near the foot of the bed was a little table, on which were two
drinking vessels, apparently of pewter, and a mouldering pack of
cards! Card-playing and the hidden room did hold some relation with
each other! The cards and the devil were real!
Donal took up the sheet--a light burden, and Arctura led the way.
Arrived at her room, they went softly across to the door opening on
Donal's stair--not without fear of the earl, whom indeed they might
meet anywhere--and by that descending, reached the open air, and
took their way down the terraces and through the park to the place
of burial.
It was a frosty night, with the waning sickle of a moon low in the
heaven, and many brilliant stars above it.
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