"Can you wonder?" I said. "Yes, perhaps you can. It is impossible for
you to understand. If you wanted money as badly as I do, and saw the
bare possibility of getting it, you too would shake--you would find it
impossible to control your emotion."
Again Tom Valentine's eyes met mine. Now they were less approving.
Their glance expressed a sense of being puzzled, of being disappointed.
Meanwhile, Captain Valentine, lifting the tiny portion of paper, was
trying to decipher the very minute writing on the other side.
"You cannot read that with the naked eye," I remarked. "Has any one
here got a magnifying glass?"
"I have," said my cousin Tom.
He took a tiny little lens, exquisitely mounted, out of his pocket, and
handed it gravely to his brother. Captain Valentine applied the lens to
his eye, looked at the ring, and uttered an exclamation.
"Look in the Chamber of Myths," he read aloud.
"`Look in the Chamber of Myths!' What does this mean? I always thought
Geoffrey Rutherford was off his head. Dear Miss Lindley, are you
allowing wild words of this sort to guide you?"
"There is method in this madness," I returned, "for this is the Chamber
of Myths."
"This room, this lovely room?" exclaimed Lady Ursula.
"Yes; it was one of Cousin Geoffrey's fancies to name each room in his
house. This was called by him the `Chamber of Myths'--why, I cannot
tell you. The fact I can verify. Go to the door and look."
I brought them all to the door of the room, pushed aside the sliding
panel, and showed the name in white letters on a dark ground.