“Has it occurred to you,” he went on, “that the treasure may be at the bottom of that well? It only struck me a few minutes ago. If we could get out and have a talk with Dick, he’s such an ingenious devil that I’m sure he would find the opening of the well, which may be inside the old abbey itself. Most of these mediaeval buildings had a well in the centre and kept their water supply enclosed.”

“You didn’t find an exit?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I got into a sort of labyrinth and I thought I should never get out again. Good heavens! Look at your feet!”

They were indeed in a sorry plight, swollen and bleeding. In an instant he had pulled off his own shoes.

“Put them on,” he said authoritatively, and when she demurred, he seized her foot and slipped her toes into the shoe. “I was a great runner in my day,” he said, with a hint of pride, “and barefooted running was my speciality – to use a horrible theatrical word.”

The shoes were much too big for her, but the comfort of them after walking barefooted on that rough floor!

“There’s one place I haven’t explored, and that is the little side passage to the left. There has been some sort of a fall there and the rock looks rotten. I didn’t like to attempt an exploration. By the way, what made you faint?” he asked suddenly.

“I don’t know – nerves, I suppose,” she said.

It was useless and even dangerous to tell him of what had happened by the wall of the well.

“I thought it might be that,” he said. “If you feel fitter now we’ll go along.”

He walked ahead, switching his lamp on and off at intervals. He wanted to economise his batteries, he told her, which had shown signs of running out. All the time he kept up an incessant chatter. He had plans about the future of the abbey and grew enthusiastic when he expounded his scheme.

“This is not even a Saxon-English burrow, but probably goes back to the days of the original inhabitants of Britain,” he said. “We are walking in paths that were originally cut by cavemen. Doesn’t that thrill you, Leslie?”

“Terribly,” she said, with unconscious irony.

“I’ll have the place wired and lit; it will be necessary to increase the electric supply, but Dick will see to that. I may present it to the nation or to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners – I’m not certain which. There is no doubt from an archaeological point of view–”