“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Berners.
“I know what that ‘oh!’ means, Lyon. But I hope before we leave this chapel that you will find out that I can distinguish a dream from a dreadful reality,” observed his wife.
Meanwhile they had reached the iron door of the vault. It was fast. Pendleton took hold of the iron bars and tried to shake it; but the bars were bedded in solid stone, and the door was immovable. Then he looked through the grating down into the depths below, but he only saw the top of the staircase, the bottom of which disappeared in the darkness.
“My dear Mrs. Berners,” he then said, turning to Sybil, “I do not like to differ with a lady in a matter of her ‘own experience’; but as we are in search of the truth, and the truth happens to be of the most vital importance to our safety, I feel constrained to assure you that this door, from its very appearance, assures us that it can not have been opened within half a century, and that consequently your ‘own experience’ of the last night cannot have been a reality, but must have been a dream.”
“I wish you could dream such a one, and then you would know something about it,” answered Sybil.
“I think you will have to come to my theory about the opium,” put in Mr. Berners, “especially as I have pursued my ‘phantom’ one stage farther in her flight, and am able to assign a possible motive for her secret visits to the chapel.”
“Ah! do that, and we will think about agreeing with your views. Now then the motive,” exclaimed Pendleton.
“Oh!”
“Yes, a lover. She comes here to meet him; and not liking eye-witnesses to the courtship, she drugged us,” said Mr. Berners, triumphantly.