And then, because she was afraid of the secret that she had stumbled upon, she ran upstairs and found her way back to the nurseries again.

She had forgotten now what she had been about to do. She had forgotten everything except the strange secret that she had just encountered.

‘Who could the man be?’ she wondered.

His white hair proclaimed him as being elderly. It was difficult to see from his bloated features whether he resembled Lord Lynche or the Dowager in any way.

She had given her word not to speak of it to anyone, but that did not prevent her speculating on the extraordinary circumstances of a man hidden away in a Priest hole.

The room had been furnished in luxury. The rugs were expensive, the chairs were covered in red brocade and there had been a bookcase in one corner containing leather-backed volumes such as one might have found in the library of The Castle. The linen had been soft and crested and the bowl in which the valet had brought the water had been of expensive china.

It was someone of importance hidden there, Carina knew and she wondered a little wistfully if she would ever learn who the prisoner was.

Then a question sprang to her mind.

What would happen to the man and his faithful valet if The Castle passed into the hands of Sir Percy? Would they dare to stay on, hiding from the new owner of The Castle?

Carina guessed that that would be impossible. The valet must get his food from somewhere and she remembered that he had been carrying a tray when she had first seen him and thought him to be a ghost.

He had come then from upstairs and she guessed that Mrs. Barnstaple was in on the secret.

Carina sat down on a chair and tried to puzzle it out. The whole situation fascinated her and made her forget for a moment the other drama taking place in The Castle.

But all too soon her thoughts returned to Lord Lynche.

Would he have told his mother yet what had happened at cards? And what would the Dowager say?

Carina could not help feeling sorry for her. She would have felt the same for any woman, who had loved her home and all that it meant and who found it stolen from under her nose by someone as low and despicable as Sir Percy Rockley.

She wondered if there was anything she could do to help. She knew what it was to experience the first moments of shock, that ghastly sinking feeling when one learns the worst and realises that there is nothing that can be done about it.