Our guide had left us the lantern. Holmes swung it slowly round, and peered keenly at the house, and at the great rubbish-heaps which cumbered the grounds. Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marvelled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand, like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us.

“What a strange place!” she said, looking round.

“It looks as though all the moles in England had been let loose in it. I have seen something of the sort on the side of a hill near Ballarat, where the prospectors had been at work.”

“And from the same cause,” said Holmes. “These are the traces of the treasure-seekers. You must remember that they were six years looking for it. No wonder that the grounds look like a gravel-pit.”

At that moment the door of the house burst open, and Thaddeus Sholto came running out, with his hands thrown forward and terror in his eyes.

“There is something amiss with Bartholomew!” he cried. “I am frightened! My nerves cannot stand it.” He was, indeed, half blubbering with fear, and his twitching feeble face peeping out from the great Astrakhan collar had the helpless appealing expression of a terrified child.

“Come into the house,” said Holmes, in his crisp, firm way.

“Yes, do!” pleaded Thaddeus Sholto. “I really do not feel equal to giving directions.”

We all followed him into the housekeeper’s room, which stood upon the left-hand side of the passage. The old woman was pacing up and down with a scared look and restless picking fingers, but the sight of Miss Morstan appeared to have a soothing effect upon her.

“God bless your sweet calm face!” she cried, with an hysterical sob. “It does me good to see you. Oh, but I have been sorely tried this day!”

Our companion patted her thin, work-worn hand, and murmured some few words of kindly womanly comfort which brought the colour back into the other’s bloodless cheeks.