Moore listened in almost breathless silence, only interrupted now and
then by muttered ejaculations, and when I had finished he looked up, his
eyes sparkling, and said solemnly--
"It's as good as a haunted house any day, Reggie. I never heard such a
jolly mystery. Close at hand too! I do wish I had been with you the
day you got inside. I fancy I can see you and Isabel scuttering off
like two frightened rabbits," and here he broke out laughing.
This I did not altogether approve of.
"If you treat it in that way," I said severely, "I shall wish I had not
told you anything about it. It is no laughing matter, that I can see.
It is terribly sad to think of these poor people being forced, or
thinking they are forced, to lead such a life. I should be so glad to
find out any way of helping them."
My tone sobered the boy, but he did not pretend to be influenced by any
such high motives as those which I persuaded myself actuated _me_, far
more than idle curiosity.
"I don't see that you or any stranger could possibly be of the least use
to them," he said. "All the same I'd give anything to find out about
it, and I don't see but what we might make some investigations without
doing any one any harm. You are plucky enough for anything--not like
Isabel; and just supposing, Reggie, that there _is_ somebody shut up
there that no one has ever seen; that man you met might be a kind of a
keeper."
"He was a gentleman," I replied.
"He might have been some sort of a doctor," said Moore consideringly.
"And don't think for a moment," I said, without noticing his last
remark, "that they are the kind of people to do anything wicked or
cruel. They are the sufferers themselves, of that I am certain."
"I'll have a good look at them in church next Sunday," he replied. "I
do remember noticing them in their big square pew, and thinking they
looked gloomy and queer, but I could not see them very well from where I
sat. Have you been back to the door in the wall again to see if it is
still open?"