“But now you have the masons here, why not go on, and make a little search for the lost room?” said Arctura, venturing once more.
“We might pull down the castle and be none the wiser! Bah! the building up of half the closet may have given rise to the whole story!”
“Surely, uncle, the legend is older than that!”
“It may be; you cannot be sure. Once a going, it would immediately cry back to a remote age. Prove that any one ever spoke of it before the building of that foolish wall.”
“Surely some remember hearing it long before that!”
“Nothing is more treacherous than a memory confronted with a general belief,” said the earl, and took his leave.
The next morning Arctura went to see the alteration. She opened the door of the little room: it was twice its former size, and two bureaus were standing against the wall! She peeped into the cupboard at the end of it, but saw nothing there.
That same morning she made up her mind that she would go no farther at present in regard to the chapel: it would be to break with her uncle!
In the evening, she acquainted Donal with her resolve, and he could not say she was wrong. There was no necessity for opposing her uncle—there might soon come one! He told her how he had entered the closet from behind, and of the noise he had made the night before, which had perhaps led to the opening of the place; but he did not tell her of what he had found on the bureau. The time might come when he must do so, but now he dared not render her relations with her uncle yet more uncomfortable; neither was it likely such a woman would consent to marry such a man as her cousin had shown himself; when that danger appeared, it would be time to interpose; for the mere succession to an empty title, he was not sure that he was bound to speak. The branch which could produce such scions, might well be itself a false graft on the true stem of the family!—if not, what was the family worth? He must at all events be sure it was his business before he moved in the matter!