sight of me and
came toward me blowing deep moist breaths as a quiet challenge to the
intruder, until halted by the bars they stood in a curious group
watching me until I disappeared up the lane, a lane screened from the
successive pastures on either side by an impenetrable hedge and flanked
its entire length by tall trees, their tops meeting overhead like the
Gothic arches of a cathedral aisle. This roof of green made the lane at
this hour so dark that I had to look sharp to avoid the muddy places,
for the lane ascended like the bed of a brook until it reached the
plateau of woodlands and green fields above, commanding a sweeping view
of marsh and sea below.

Birds fluttered nervously in the hedges, frightened at my approaching
footsteps. A hare sniffing in the middle of the path flattened his long
ears and sprang into the thicket ahead. The nightingales in the forest
above began calling to one another. Two doves went skimming out of the
leaves over my head. Even a peacemaker may be mistaken for an enemy. And
now I had gained the plateau and it grew lighter--that gentle light with
which night favours the open places.

There are two crossroads at the top of the lane. The left one leads to
the hamlet of Beaufort le Petit, a sunken cluster of farms ten good
leagues from Pont du Sable; the right one swings off into the highroad
half a mile beyond, which in turn is met by the private way of the
chateau skirting the stone wall surrounding the park, which, as early
as 1608, served as the idle stronghold of the Duc de Rambutin. It has
seen much since then and has stood its ground bravely under the stress
of misfortune. The Prussians hammered off two of its towers, and an
artillery fire once mowed down some of its oldest trees and wrecked the
frescoed ceiling and walls of the salon, setting fire to the south wing,
which was never rebuilt and whose jagged and blackened walls the roses
and vines have long since lovingly hidden from view.

Alice bought this once splendid feudal estate literally for a song--the
song in the second act of Fremier's comedy, which had a long run at the
Varietes three years ago, and in which she earned an enviable success
and some beautiful bank-notes. Were the Duc de Rambutin alive I am sure
he would have presented it to her--shooting forest, stone wall, and all.
They say he had an intolerable temper, but was kind to ladies and
lap-dogs.

It was not long before I unlatched a moss-covered gate with