of arched
stone passages paved with brick, cold on the hottest day, with short
flights of steps making unexpected changes of level; every wall so thick
as to hold deep cupboards, even small rooms, or private staircases
climbing steeply up or down. The old ghosts of the chateau, who slipped
in and out of these walls and flitted about the hidden steps, had lost a
good deal of their credit in the last twenty years. No self-respecting
ghost could show itself to Urbain de la Mariniere, and few mortals
besides him haunted the remote passages while the great house stood
empty.

And now one may be sure that the ghosts were careful to hide themselves
from Madame de Sainfoy. No half-lights, no chilly shadows wavering on
the wall, no quick passing of a wind from nowhere, such hints and
vanishings as might send a shiver through ordinary bones, had any effect
on Adelaide's cool dignity. The light of reason shone in her clear-cut
face; her voice, penetrating and decided, was enough to frighten any
foolish spirit who chose to sweep rushingly beside her through the wall
as she walked along the passages.

"Do you hear the rats?" she would say. "How can we catch them? These old
houses are infested with them."

She spoke so firmly that even the ghost itself believed it was a rat,
and scuttled away out of hearing.

To reach the north wing, where her three girls and their governess
lived, Madame de Sainfoy had to mount a short flight of steps from the
hall, then to go along a vaulted corridor lighted only by a small
lucarne window here and there, then down a staircase which brought her
to the level of the great salons and the dining-room at the opposite
end, which formerly, like this north wing, had hung over the moat, but
were now being brought nearer the ground by Monsieur de Sainfoy's
earthworks.

This old north wing had been less restored than any other part of the
chateau. The passage which ran through it, only lighted by a window at
the foot of the staircase, ended at the arched door of a silent,
deserted chapel with an altar on its east side, a quaint figure of Our
Lady in a carved niche, and a window half-darkened with ivy leaves,
overhanging the green and damp depths of the moat, now empty of water.

Before reaching the chapel--lonely and neglected, but not desecrated,
for by the care of Madame de la Mariniere mass had been said in it once
a year--there were four doors, two on each side of the corridor. The
first on the le