"You dear silly children!" she exclaimed. "It was a case of much ado about nothing, and yet you nearly ran into such great danger that it makes me shudder even to think about it. There certainly was a reason for visiting the attic, though not at all of the kind you imagined. It contains a large cistern, which supplies the water for the bath and the kitchen boiler. This is fed by a tank on the roof that catches the rain, and in dry weather it is apt to get out of order. If it is not working properly, it makes a curious blowing noise."
"Like groaning?" asked Cicely.
"Yes, very like groaning, though it would need a gigantic prisoner to utter such fearful moans of distress. No wonder you thought somebody was being tortured!" and Monica laughed again.
"You can understand," she continued, "that with so many girls in the house requiring baths, we were afraid lest the tank should run dry, and were continually examining the cistern, to make sure that the water was flowing properly. If it had stopped even for an hour, it might have caused the kitchen boiler to burst."
"Did Mrs. Wilson go to look, then?" enquired Lindsay.
"Either Mrs. Wilson or Scott went every day. My mother was so anxious about it that I several times ran up myself, so that I could tell her all was perfectly safe. Mrs. Wilson was equally nervous. We had so little rain in June that she was sure the tank must be nearly empty."
"Then that was what she and Scott meant about the noise and danger, when they were talking in the picture gallery!" interposed Cicely.
"Yes," replied Monica. "When people try to overhear conversations, and put two and two together for themselves, they rarely succeed in coming to a right conclusion."
Lindsay and Cicely blushed. They had known from the first that Monica would not approve of either eavesdropping or peeping through keyholes. This was the part of the business of which they both felt rather ashamed; they were conscious that there had been a great deal of curiosity mixed up with their efforts on her behalf. Monica, however, took no notice of their heightened colour, and went on:
"Both Scott and Mrs. Wilson were quite right in wishing to keep you away from the attics; you will understand when I explain why. The hiding-place in the lantern room is a relic of the times of King James I. Have you learnt yet in your history books what severe penal laws were made against Roman Catholics in those days? Any priest found celebrating Mass might be executed, and often he was tortured first to make him tell the whereabouts of his companions. Our ancestors, who lived then at the Manor, still belonged to the old faith, and they needed some spot where they could worship without fear of being disturbed; so they made the secret entrance through the cupboard, and private services were held in the great garret. Even with such precautions it was a very dangerous thing for a priest to remain long in a country house. If his presence were suspected, and information given, a party of soldiers would at once come with a search warrant to hunt for him.