wing, you came to the old building; in fact, these two
fragments of the ancient castle had formerly been attached by some such
connecting apartments as my husband had rebuilt. These rooms belonged to
M. de la Tourelle. His bedroom opened into mine, his dressing-room lay
beyond; and that was pretty nearly all I knew, for the servants, as
well as he himself, had a knack of turning me back, under some pretence,
if ever they found me walking about alone, as I was inclined to do, when
first I came, from a sort of curiosity to see the whole of the place of
which I found myself mistress. M. de la Tourelle never encouraged me to
go out alone, either in a carriage or for a walk, saying always that the
roads were unsafe in those disturbed times; indeed, I have sometimes
fancied since that the flower-garden, to which the only access from the
castle was through his rooms, was designed in order to give me exercise
and employment under his own eye.

But to return to that night. I knew, as I have said, that M. de la
Tourelle's private room opened out of his dressing-room, and this out
of his bedroom, which again opened into mine, the corner-room. But there
were other doors into all these rooms, and these doors led into a long
gallery, lighted by windows, looking into the inner court. I do not
remember our consulting much about it; we went through my room into
my husband's apartment through the dressing-room, but the door of
communication into his study was locked, so there was nothing for it
but to turn back and go by the gallery to the other door. I recollect
noticing one or two things in these rooms, then seen by me for the first
time. I remember the sweet perfume that hung in the air, the scent
bottles of silver that decked his toilet-table, and the whole apparatus
for bathing and dressing, more luxurious even than those which he had
provided for me. But the room itself was less splendid in its proportions
than mine. In truth, the new buildings ended at the entrance to my
husband's dressing-room. There were deep window recesses in walls eight
or nine feet thick, and even the partitions between the chambers were
three feet deep; but over all these doors or windows there fell thick,
heavy draperies, so that I should think no one could have heard in one
room what passed in another. We went back into my room, and out into the
gallery. We had to shade our candle, from a fear that possessed us, I
don't know why, lest some of the servants