He listened quietly to the end while I told him of my experience with Morgan, of the tunnel into the chapel crypt, Sand finally of the affair in the night and our interview with Bates.

“I feel like rubbing my eyes and accusing you of reading penny-horrors,” he said. “That doesn’t sound like the twentieth century in Indiana.”

“But Ferguson,—you’d better have a care in his direction. Sister Theresa—”

“Bless your heart ! Ferguson’s gone—without notice. He got his traps and skipped without saying a word to any one.”

“We’ll hear from him again, no doubt. Now, gentlemen, I believe we understand one another. I don’t like to draw you, either one of you, into my private affairs—”

The big chaplain laughed.

“Glenarm,”—prefixes went out of commission quickly that morning,—“if you hadn’t let me in on this I should never have got over it. Why, this is a page out of the good old times ! Bless me ! I never appreciated tour grandfather ! I must, run—I have another service. But I hope you gentlemen will call on me, day or night, for anything I can do to help you. Please don’t forget me. I had the record once for putting the shot.”

“Why not give our friend escort through the tunnel ?” asked Larry. “I’ll not hesitate to say that I’m dying to see it.”

“To be sure !” We went down into the cellar, and poked over the lantern and candlestick collections, and I pointed out the exact spot where Morgan and I had indulged in our revolver duel. It was fortunate that the plastered walls of the cellar showed clearly the cuts and scars of the pistol-balls or I fear my story would have fallen on incredulous ears.

The debris I had piled upon the false block of stone in the cellar lay as I had left it, but the three of us quickly freed the trap. The humor of the thing took strong hold of my new allies, and while I was getting a lantern to light us through the passage Larry sat on the edge of the trap and howled a few bars of a wild Irish jig. We set forth at once and found the passage unchanged. When the cold air blew in upon us I paused.

“Have you gentlemen the slightest idea of where you are?”

“We must be under the school-grounds, I should say,” replied Stoddard.

“We’re exactly under the stone wall. Those tall posts at the gate are a scheme for keeping fresh air in the passage.”

“You certainly have all the modern improvements,” observed Larry, and I heard him chuckling all the way to the door.

When I pushed the panel open and we stepped out into the crypt Stoddard whistled and Larry swore softly.