If the manor-house was in reality resorted to as a place of refuge by any person, that person was probably in those rooms, and, being surprised in his sleep, would seek to defend himself without awaiting an explanation. His proposed exploration therefore should be conducted with due prudence. The marquis did not believe in ghosts, and was the less disposed to fear living things because he was not seeking them with any evil purpose. If some poor devil were in hiding there, he was resolved, whoever he might be, to leave him there in peace and not betray the secret he had surprised.
But the refugee's first fright might assume the form of hostility. The marquis could have made no appreciable noise in entering and ascending the stairs, as nothing stirred. It was most advisable for him to make sure of the truth unseen and unheard, if possible, or at all events without making his appearance too abruptly.
With that end in view, he entered a room with no door, where the most absolute darkness reigned, all the windows being covered with boards or stuffed with straw. The floor was covered with a layer of dust and pulverized cement, of such depth that one's footsteps were deadened by it as by ashes.
Bois-Doré walked for a long while, hardly able to see where he was going. He had closed his lantern, which was unprovided with glass or horn, but had a half cylinder of iron with three holes in it, according to the custom of the province. He did not venture to open it until he had reached the end of that vast apartment and had satisfied himself that he was in an absolutely silent and deserted spot.
Then he placed his light on the floor in front of him and stepped back to an enormous fire-place which was near at hand.
Standing there, he was able to accustom his eyes little by little to so faint a light in so vast a space, and to make out that he was in a hall which extended the whole length of the château.
He examined the fire-place by which he was standing. Like everything else it was of white stone, and the square bases, projecting from the massive columns, seemed as fresh and new as if they had been hewn the day before; the double fillets of the mantel were neither marred nor chipped, and the same was true of the escutcheon, without coat-of-arms, which crowned the mantel. Even the smoke-flue, and the fire-place itself, which was not sheathed with iron, bore no traces of fire, smoke or ashes. The unfinished building had never been used, that was evident. No one had ever occupied, no one now occupied that bare, cheerless hall.
Having satisfied himself of that fact, the marquis made bold to go to ascertain why a barrier of boards, waist-high, extended diagonally across that immense room at a point halfway between the two ends. Upon reaching that point, he found himself looking into space. The floor had fallen or been cut away, as had that of the lower stories, in quite half of the building, perhaps to facilitate the storing of the crops.
The eye plunged into the darkness of an expanse that seemed as large as the interior of a cathedral.
Bois-Doré had been there for some moments, trying to form a just idea of his surroundings, when, from the depths which his eyes questioned in vain, a sort of groan rose to his ears.