Beside the fireplace a dark cavity yawned in the panelling.
She scrambled up, and forgetting that Peter had gone through the door that led to the servants' quarters, called to him. "Peter, come here quickly!"
Then she remembered that he could not hear her, and she stood for a minute, looking at the gap in the panels. Not for worlds, she thought, would she venture inside until Peter came back, but sheer curiosity impelled her to tiptoe towards it, and try to peep in.
It was so dark that she could only see that it seemed to be a narrow stone stairway, leading up in the thickness of the wall. The central lamp threw its light so that it only illumined the step immediately in a line with the opening, and the stone wall beyond. Margaret could not see more than the dim outline of another step leading downwards. She was half afraid that some horrible skeleton might be inside, but she could not perceive anything of that nature. Holding with one hand to the edge of the panel, she ventured to step just inside, in the hope of being able to see where the stairs led. Leaning her other hand against the wall she craned forward trying to pierce the darkness below her. She moved her right hand from the wall to feel ahead of her, wondering whether she was really standing on a staircase, or whether it was only another priest's hole. Her hand did not, as she had half expected, encounter another wall, but to her annoyance a gold bangle that she wore and whose clasp she had been meaning to have strengthened, came undone, and fell with a tinkle on to the second step, which she could just perceive. Involuntarily she stooped to pick it up, but to reach it she had to let go of the panel she still held, and take one step down on to the second stair. Her fingers had closed on the bangle and she was about to step back on to the level of the library floor when she was startled to see the shaft of light cast by the lamp in the room disappearing. She turned like a flash, and saw to her horror that the panel was sliding noiselessly back into place.
She flung herself forward, but she was too late. The panel had closed, and she was in utter darkness.
In the terror of finding herself a prisoner she lost her head, and shrieked for her brother, beating wildly on the back of the panel, trying to tear it open. She only succeeded in breaking a finger-nail, and her panic grew.
She screamed, "Help! help! Peter, Peter, Peter!"
Somewhere below her she heard a soft, padding step, and the hush of a robe brushing against the wall. Like a mad woman she clawed at the panel. "Quick! oh quick! Peter, help!"
Then in the darkness a gloved hand stole across her mouth, and an arm in a wide sleeve was round her, holding her in a vice.
She tried to break free, to jerk her head away, but her arms were clamped to her sides and that horrible, gloved hand was like a gag over her mouth.