I had risen as he spoke, and his quiet manner helped me to recover myself a little.

“I am not tired,”—­I answered—­“I could go to him at once—­”

He smiled.

“That is not possible!” he said—­“He is not ready.  If you will come to the apartment allotted to you I am sure you will be glad of some repose.  May I ask you to follow me?”

He was perfectly courteous in demeanour, and yet there was a certain impressive authority about him which silently impelled obedience.  I had nothing further to demand or to suggest, and I followed him at once.  He preceded me out of the domed hall into a long stone passage, where every sign of luxury, beauty or comfort disappeared in cold vastness, and where at every few steps large white boards with the word ‘Silence!’ printed upon them in prominent black letters confronted the eyes.  The way we had to go seemed long and dreary and dungeon-like, but presently we turned towards an opening where the sun shone through, and my guide ascended a steep flight of stone stairs, at the top of which was a massive door of oak, heavily clamped with iron.  Taking a key from his girdle, he unlocked this door, and throwing it open, signed to me to pass in.  I did so, and found myself in a plain stone-walled room with a vaulted roof, and one very large, lofty, uncurtained window which looked out upon the sea and sheer down the perpendicular face of the rock on which the Chateau d’Aselzion was built.  The furniture consisted of one small camp bedstead, a table, and two easy chairs, a piece of rough matting on the floor near the bed, and a hanging cupboard for clothes.  A well-fitted bathroom adjoined this apartment, but beyond this there was nothing of modern comfort and certainly no touch of luxury.  I moved instinctively to the window to look out at the sea,- -and then turned to thank my guide for his escort, but he had gone.  Thrilled with a sudden alarm, I ran to the door—­it was locked!  I was a prisoner!  I stood breathless and amazed;—­then a wave of mingled indignation and terror swept over me.  How dared these people restrain my liberty?  I looked everywhere round the room for a bell or some means of communication by which I could let them know my mind—­but there was nothing to help me.  I went to the window again, and finding it was like a French casement, merely latched in the centre, I quickly unfastened and threw it open.  The scent of the sea rushed at me with a delicious freshness, reminding me of Loch Scavaig and the ’Dream’—­and I leaned out, looking longingly over the wide expanse of glittering water just now broken into little crests of foam by a rising breeze.  Then I saw that my room was a kind of turret chamber, projecting itself sheer over a great wall of rock which evidently had its base in the bed of the ocean.  There was no escape for me that way, even if I had sought it.  I drew back from the window and paced round and round my room like a trapped animal—­ angry with myself for having ventured into such a place, and forgetting entirely my previous determination to go through all that might happen to me with patience and unflinching nerve.