She entered the bookroom and sat down by the fire. “I should not, I know,” she confessed. “But females have such unaccountable fancies! You will think me as paltry a creature as your cousin, I dare say, but I must Own that there is something very disagreeable to me in the thought that there is a way into this house which is used by one who you have assured me must be an ugly customer. In fact, even now in broad daylight I find I cannot be easy in my mind, and quite dread being obliged to go upstairs.”
“Oh, you need be under no apprehension, ma’am!” he assured her. “There can be no fear of anyone’s entering that door during the daylight! But I’ll tell you what! While I ride back to the Hall to tell Ned about this, I’ll leave Bouncer to guard you. You will be quite at your ease then, for he is pretty fierce, I can tell you! He took a bite out of the blacksmith’s leg only the other day. He is a splendid dog, and only quite young yet!”
She looked dubiously at the dog, which was stretched out before the fire fast asleep. “Well, if you think ... But perhaps he will not stay, if you go.”
“Yes, he will. I have been training him to do all manner of tricks! Here, Bouncer! Here, boy!”
The hound awoke and sat up, dipping his ears and panting fondly at his master. Nicky patted him invigoratingly. “Good dog, Bouncer!” he said. “Now you stay here and guard her! Do you understand, sir? Sit! That’s it! On guard, Bouncer, mind!” He straightened himself, regarding his pet proudly. “You can see how he understands me, can you not?” he said.
“I’ll be off at once. Don’t put yourself to the trouble of coming to the door with me! And don’t be in the fidgets, will you, Cousin? I shall be back almost directly and I will bring Ned to you. Sit, Bouncer! On guard!”
He left the room as he spoke, taking the precaution of shutting the door behind him. The faithful Bouncer bounded over to it, sniffed long and loud at the crack, uttered a whine, and scratched at the panel. Finding it immovable, he returned to the fire and lay down with his head on his paws and his eyes fixed on Elinor.
She leaned back in her chair, really a good deal upset by the discovery of the secret stairway and feeling the need of a period of quiet during which she might compose her mind. Common sense assured her that Nicky’s theories could be nothing more than the products of an ardent imagination, but try as she would she could not hit upon a more reasonable explanation of the Frenchman’s presence in the house on the previous night. He had not seemed to her at all the sort of young man to have made use of the secret door from a high-spirited desire to give his host a fright; nor could she believe him to have been a common housebreaker. Some motive he must have had, but what this was she was much inclined to think no one but himself would ever know. That he would return in the same manner seemed to her to go beyond the bounds of probability, yet however irrational it might be, she could not think of that secret stair without feeling her pulses beat fast with trepidation.
She did her best to shake off such foolish fears and told herself she would be better employed in sorting the linen than in sitting thinking herself into nervous spasms. She got up out of her chair and would have walked over to the door had it not been unmistakably brought home to her that the intelligent hound at her-feet was laboring under some confusion of ideas. He too rose, and with bristles lifting all along his back and his lips curling away from a set of admirable teeth, placed himself before her, growling.
Elinor stood still, looking down at him doubtfully. “Good dog!” she said, in what she hoped was a reassuring voice. “Lie down, sir!”