he door as she said this, and I thought I heard the key
turn in the lock.

CHAPTER LXII

_A WELL-KNOWN FACE LOOKS IN_

You who have never experienced it can have no idea how angry and frightened
you become under the sinister insult of being locked into a room, as on
trying the door I found I was.

The key was in the lock; I could see it through the hole. I called after
Madame, I shook at the solid oak-door, beat upon it with my hands, kicked
it--but all to no purpose.

I rushed into the next room, forgetting--if indeed I had observed it, that
there was no door from it upon the gallery. I turned round in an angry and
dismayed perplexity, and, like prisoners in romances, examined the windows.

I was shocked and affrighted on discovering in reality what they
occasionally find--a series of iron bars crossing the window! They were
firmly secured in the oak woodwork of the window-frame, and each window
was, besides, so compactly screwed down that it could not open. This
bedroom was converted into a prison. A momentary hope flashed on
me--perhaps all the windows were secured alike! But it was no such thing:
these gaol-like precautions were confined to the windows to which I had
access.

For a few minutes I felt quite distracted; but I bethought me that I must
now, if ever, control my terrors and exert whatever faculties I possessed.

I stood upon a chair and examined the oak-work. I thought I detected marks
of new chiselling here and there. The screws, too, looked new; and they
and the scars on the woodwork were freshly smeared over with some coloured
stuff by way of disguise.

While I was making these observations, I heard the key stealthily stirred.
I suspect that Madame wished to surprise me. Her approaching step, indeed,
was seldom audible; she had the soft tread of the feline tribe.

I was standing in the centre of the room confronting her when she entered.

'Why did you lock the door, Madame?' I demanded.

She slipped in suddenly with an insidious smirk, and locked the door
hastily.

'Hish!' whispered Madame, raising her broad palm; and then screwing in her
cheeks, she made an ogle over her shoulder in the direction of the passage.

'Hish! be quiate, cheaile, weel you, and I weel tale you everything
presently.'

She paused, with her ear laid to the door.

'Now I can speak, ma chere; I weel tale a you there is bailiff in the
house, two, three, four soche impertinent fallows! They have another as