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ed." She was, indeed, judging by the building which now rose before him from the side of the road along which he had come. Unapproached by any path, unsurrounded by any out-towers or fortalices, the Manoir of Roquemaure raised a great stone wall or rampart to the road; a wall almost blank on this side of windows with the exception of some arrow-slits, and at either end of it--one looking south, the other north--two tourelles, penetrated also with _oillets_ at regular distances from each other; and by each tourelle, on its outer side, a small, high door of antique, Francois Premier style, or even older, through which a mounted man might ride. Doors shut fast on this wintry night, and with no sign of life at either doorways or loopholes, except in so far as a great lantern, swinging on a rope above one of the former and emitting its dull rays, might be said to testify to the place being inhabited. "More like a fort!" again exclaimed St. Georges as he regarded the almost blank wall, "far more; yet, unless I am spied on and watched from within, not over-well guarded, though I presume my lady has no foes to guard against. Well, here's for it," and advancing his horse to the doorway he reached out his hand, took the horn that hung on a chain close by, and sounded some notes. Then, while waiting for an answer to his summons, he backed his horse into the middle of the road which bulged out semicircularly in front of the long building, and observed it carefully. "A grim, hard place," he said to himself, regarding it under the rays of the young moon that was now stronger and clearer than when it had shed its feeble rays over the hamlet of Aignay-le-Duc, "and my enemy's stronghold, or I am mistaken. A place in which a man when once entrapped might find it difficult to fight his way out of. No exit but those doors at either side--a cat could hardly slip through the arrow-slits!--and all along beyond either side a wide moat, with palisades on the inner bank. Humph! Well, let us see. If my friend in the burganet, or volant-piece, or whatever he terms his rusty headdress, is here, the fight will be inside. So, so! May the end of it be as the other was! I am at least forearmed." As he mused thus--firm, determined, and cool, and fearing not to enter this grim abode, since she whom he loved more than his life was safe in the city half a league away--he heard the locks being turned in the doorway and saw the door open, doubtless aft
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