still
farther along this 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,