All had suggestions to offer to account for my having been forgotten there, and the theory which we finally agreed on offers at least a plausible explanation, although whether it be in its details the true one, nobody, of course, will ever know.

The layer of ashes found above the chamber indicated that the house had been burned down.

Let it be supposed that the conflagration had taken place the night I fell asleep.

It only remains to assume that Sawyer lost his life in the fire or by some accident connected with it, and the rest follows naturally enough.

No one but he and Dr.Pillsbury either knew of the existence of the chamber or that I was in it, and Dr.Pillsbury, who had gone that night to New Orleans, had probably never heard of the fire at all.