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.
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