It was a veritable secret chamber wrought by the hand of Nature itself.

I did not return home till I was familiar with every detail near and around it.
This new knowledge added distinctly to my sense of security.
Later in the day I tried to find the Vladika or any mountaineer of importance, for I thought that such a hiding-place which had been used so recently might be dangerous, and especially at a time when, as I had learned at the meeting where they did _not_ fire their guns that there may have been spies about or a traitor in the land.
Even before I came to my own room to-night I had fully made up my mind to go out early in the morning and find some proper person to whom to impart the information, so that a watch might be kept on the place.

It is now getting on for midnight, and when I have had my usual last look at the garden I shall turn in.

Aunt Janet was uneasy all day, and especially so this evening.

I think it must have been my absence at the usual breakfast-hour which got on her nerves; and that unsatisfied mental or psychical irritation increased as the day wore on.
RUPERT'S JOURNAL--_Continued_.
_May_ 20, 1907.
The clock on the mantelpiece in my room, which chimes on the notes of the clock at St.James's Palace, was striking midnight when I opened the glass door on the terrace.