ted itself. I rang; the castle gate was
opened, but this time by a major-domo who had already in some
marvellous way learned that strangers might be expected.

Never was so appallingly hospitable a man, and I trusted that even the
Boy suffered from his kindness. Madame la Baronne, who was away for
the afternoon, would chide him if guests were allowed to leave her
house without refreshment. Eat we must, and drink we must, in the
beautiful hall evidently used as a sitting-room by the absent
chatelaine. Her wine and her cakes were served on an ancient silver
tray, almost as old as the family traditions, and it was not until we
had done to both such justice as the major-domo thought fair that he
would consent to let us go further.

The house was really of superlative interest, though spoiled here and
there by eccentric modern decoration. Much of the window glass had
remained intact through centuries; the walls were twelve feet thick;
the oak-beamed ceilings magnificent, and the secret stairways and
rooms in the thickness of the walls, bewildering; but when our
conductor began leading us into the bedrooms in daily use by the
ladies of the castle, my gorge rose. "This is awful," I said. "I can't
go on. What if Madame la Baronne returns and finds a strange man and a
boy in her bedroom? Good heavens, now he's opening the door of the
bath!"

"We must go on," whispered the Boy, convulsed with silent laughter.
"If we don't, the major-domo won't understand our scruples. He'll
think we're tired, and don't appreciate the castle. It would never do
to hurt his feelings, when he has been so kind."

"To the bitter end, then," I answered desperately; and no sooner were
the words out of my mouth than the bitter end came. It consisted of a
collision with the Baronne's dressing-jacket, which hung from a hook,
and tapped me on the shoulder with one empty frilled sleeve, in soft
admonition. I could bear no more. One must draw the line somewhere,
and I drew the line at intruding upon ladies' dressing-jackets in
their most sacred fastnesses.

If I had been a woman, my pent-up emotion at this moment would have
culminated in hysterics, but being a man, I merely bolted, stumbling,
as I fled, over my absent hostess' bedroom slippers. I scuttled down a
winding flight of tower stairs, broke incontinently into a lighted
region which turned out to be a kitchen, startled the cook, apologised
incontinently, and somehow found myself, like Alice in Wo