"Yes, Geoffrey and I have made a discovery,—a most important one,—and it has lain heavy on our breasts all day. Now tell them everything about last night, Geoff, from beginning to end."
Thus adjured,—though in truth he requires little pressing, having been devoured with a desire since early dawn to reveal the hidden knowledge that is in his bosom,—Geoffrey relates to them the adventure of the night before. Indeed, he gives such a brilliant coloring to the tale that every one is stricken dumb with astonishment, Mona herself perhaps being the most astonished of all. However, like a good wife, she makes no comments, and contradicts his statements not at all, so that (emboldened by her evident determination not to interfere with anything he may choose to say) he gives them such a story as absolutely brings down the house,—metaphorically speaking.
"A secret panel! Oh, how enchanting! do, do show it to me!" cries Doatie Darling, when this marvellous recital has come to an end. "If there is one thing I adore, it is a secret chamber, or a closet in a house, or a ghost."
"You may have the ghosts all to yourself. I sha'n't grudge them to you. I'll have the cupboards," says Nicholas, who has grown at least ten years younger during the last hour. "Mona, show us this one."
Mona, drawing a chair to the panelled wall, steps up on it, and, pressing her finger on the seventh panel, it slowly rolls back, betraying the vacuum behind.
They all examine it with interest, Nolly being specially voluble on the occasion.
"And to think we all sat pretty nearly every evening within a yard or two of that blessed will, and never knew anything about it!" he says, at last, in a tone of unmitigated disgust.
"Yes, that is just what occurred to me," says Mona, nodding her head sympathetically.
"No? did it?" says Nolly, sentimentally. "How—how awfully satisfactory it is to know we both thought alike on even one subject!"
Mona, after a stare of bewilderment that dies at its birth, gives way to laughter: she is still standing on the chair, and looking down on Nolly, who is adoring her in the calm and perfectly open manner that belongs to him.