Jeanne shook her head.

"You cannot frighten me, Lord Ronald," she said. "I feel safe from
every one. I am only longing for to-morrow, for a chance to explore
this wonderful subterranean passage."

"I am afraid," their host remarked, "that you will be disappointed.
With the passing of smuggling, the romance of the thing seems to
have died. There is nothing now to look at but mouldy walls, a bare
room, and any amount of the most hideous fungi. I can promise you
that when you have been there for a few minutes your only desire
will be to escape."

"I am not so sure," the girl answered. "I think that associations
always have an effect on me. I can imagine how one might wait there,
near the entrance, hear the soft swish of the oars, look down and
see the smugglers, hear perhaps the muffled tramp of men marching
from the village. Fancy how breathless it must have been, the
excitement, the fear of being caught."

Cecil curled his slight moustache dubiously.

"If you can feel all that in my little bit of underground world," he
said, "I shall think that you are even a more wonderful person--"

He dropped his voice and leaned toward her, but Jeanne laughed in
his face and interrupted him.

"People who own things," she remarked, "never look upon them with
proper reverence. Don't you see that my mother is dying for some