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