She drew the hanging aside.

It had hidden the black mouth of a tunnel, closed by a brass wicket which was locked.
"Here," she said rapidly, "is what strengthens John in his folly.

This is a passage that leads under the Temple through Moriah into Tophet.
The whole city is underlaid with these galleries, but this is the only one which leads to safety." She dropped the curtain and approached him.
"But thou canst not go out of that passage alone!" He smiled, and then with that boyish impulsiveness that he had cultivated to cover the evil in his nature, he thrust out his hand to her.
"Here is my hand on it!" he exclaimed.
"Go, then, and cease not till you have found her.

Then, by any or all the gods, I shall see that you do not go out of that passage empty-handed." He smiled at her radiantly and went at once to his chambers.
When he reached the apartments, he found them silent and deserted.

He seized upon the opportunity as most propitious for a search for the possible hiding-place of the dowry of two hundred talents.
When he opened first the great press in which his lady kept her raiment he was confronted by emptiness.