The situation suddenly presented itself in rosy colors.  I saw how strong the door was, what a lot of breaking it would take.  And if they did force a way in, then I could try some sharp-shooting.  But Miss Falconer was getting up slowly.

“Now the papers, Mr. Bayne,” said she.

To be sure, the papers!  I had temporarily forgotten them.

“They can’t be here,” I said blankly, gazing about the room.

“No, not here.  In there.”  She motioned toward the inner door.  “This is the old suite of the lords of Prezelay.  We are in the room of the guards, where the armed retainers used to lie all night before the fire, watching.  Then comes the antechamber and then the room of the squires and then the bedchamber of the lord.”  Her voice had fallen now as if she thought that the walls were listening.  “In the lord’s room there is a secret hiding-place behind a panel; and if the papers are at Prezelay, they will be there.”

I took the candle from her, turned to the door, and opened it.

“I hope they are,” I said.  “Let us go and see.”

The antechamber, the room of the squires, the bedchamber of the lord.  Such terms were fascinating; they called up before me a whole picture of feudal life.  Thanks to the attentions of the Germans, the rooms were mere empty shells, however, though they must have been rather splendid when decked out with furniture and portraits and tapestries before the war.

Our steps echoed on the stone as we traversed the antechamber, a quaint round place, lined with bull’s-eye windows and presided over by the statues of four armed men.  Another door gave us entrance to the quarter of the squires.  We started across it, but in the center of the floor I stopped.  In all the other rooms of the castle dust had lain thick, but there was none here.  Elsewhere the windows had been closed and the air heavy and musty, but here the soft night breeze was drifting in.  On a table, in odd conjunction, stood the remains of a meal, a roll of bandages, and a half-burned candle; and finally, against the wall lay a bed of a sort, a mattress piled with tumbled sheets.

Were these Marie-Jeanne’s quarters?  I did not know, but I doubted.  I turned to the girl.

“Miss Falconer,” I said, attempting naturalness, “will you go back to the guard-room and wait there a few minutes, please?  I think—­that is, it seems just possible that some one is hiding in yonder.  I’d prefer to investigate alone if you don’t mind.”

I broke off, suddenly aware of the look she was casting round her.  It did not mean fear; it could mean nothing but an incredulous, dawning hope.  These signs of occupancy suggested to her something so wonderful, so desirable that she simply dared not credit them; she was dreading that they might slip through her fingers and fade away!  I made a valiant effort at understanding.

“Perhaps,” I said, “you’re expecting some one.  Did you think that a—­a friend of yours might have arrived here before we came?” She did not glance at me, but she bent her head, assenting.  All her attention was focused raptly on that bed beside the wall.