ack from
the door.

Thank God, Jacqueline was not among those brutes below! But I
shuddered to think of her environment here.

I turned back and followed the corridor to the right, and came to a
little hall toward the rear of the building, as I judged, where the
noise of the torrents was less loud, although I now perceived that the
_chateau_ was in a continual mild tremor from the force of their
discharge.

The windows in this little hall were broken in several places, and had
evidently been in this condition for a long time, for they were covered
with strips of paper, through which the wind entered in chilling gusts.
Beyond me was an open door, and behind it I saw the dull glow of a
stove and felt its heat.

I approached cautiously and looked in.

I never saw a room so littered and uncared for. There were books
around the walls and books upon the floor, covered with dust; there was
dust and dirt and debris everywhere, and spider-webs along the walls
and ceiling. The impression of the whole place was that of ruin.

Facing me, above a cracked and ancient mirror, were two rusty
broad-swords, and in the mirror I saw a large, oaken table reflected.
Seated at it, clothed in a threadbare coat of very ancient fashion, was
an old man with long, snow-white hair and a white, forked beard. He
was busily transferring a stack of gold-pieces from his right to his
left side; and then he began scribbling on a sheet of paper. He paid
me not the smallest attention as I entered.

Not even when I stood beside him did he look up, but went on sorting
out his coins and jotting down figures upon the paper. Sheets of it,
covered with penciled figures, stood everywhere stacked upon the table,
and other sheets were strewn among the books upon the floor; and while
I watched, the old man laid aside the sheet he had been writing on and
drew another sheet from the top of a thick pile beside him.

There was a door behind his chair leading, I imagined, into a
lumber-room. I walked around the room and looked through it, but the
place beyond was dark.

Then I came back to the old man, who still paid me not the least
attention.

Now I perceived that the top of the table was very curiously designed.
It was marked off with squares and columns, and in each square were
figures in black and red. Upon one end of the table at which the old
man sat was a cup-shaped, circular affair of very dark wood--teak, it
resembled--once delicately inlai