"My dear Harriet," began Horatio—but he got no further. Whatever consolation the gentle curate had to offer was cut short by a joyful shout from Lionel.
"By Jove! I've found the door!" His cry was accompanied by a sound of rustling leaves.
As Lionel forced his way through the ivy tangle his paper torch went out. Lighting a fresh one at the sacrifice of a precious match, he found himself in a low, chimney-like chamber about the width of his outspread arms, half buried in earth and smelling of decayed wood and fungus. The damp stone sides slanted sharply inward to where, scarcely a yard away, gray with mould and studded with rusty iron bolts, loomed the upper half of an ancient wooden door. Only one hinge, huge, rusty, and fantastically wrought, was visible above the earth. Curled close against the door, blinking yellowly and purring like an automobile, sat Martin Luther.
Again the torch went out, but Lionel had seen enough. The door opened inward, that is to say, away from him, and in the grotesque scrollwork of the great hinge were three empty nail holes, leaving only two entire nails.
He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice.
"Is the ground clear on your side, Mr. Merle? The beastly door opens inward, you know."
"You don't say," came from the curate. "It's pitch dark here. I have a candle, a perfectly splendid candle, but no matches."
"I have some perfectly splendid matches and no candle," laughed Lionel.
Merle joined in the laugh, and Harriet wondered, fearfully, if the two men had gone mad.
A minute later a crash of rending wood and cringing metal caused her heart to stand still. At the same instant came a triumphant shout from Lionel and a sound of Horatio's voice close by, and, before she fully realized what had happened, Harriet Merle was sobbing, laughing, and scolding in her husband's arms.