Round the first corner they found a small white house with a thatched roof; in front of it was a small flower-garden. They stepped right into the bar which ran the length of the house.
“A man’s voice,” said Ralph doubtfully, nodding towards the door of a room on the other side of the bar.
“That’s the room in which Mother Vasseur always gives me my meals,” said the Countess. “I expect some of the villagers are in it.”
On her words the door of it opened and a woman well on in years, wearing an apron and sabots, came out of it.
At the sight of the Countess she appeared utterly flabbergasted, shut the door sharply behind her and stuttered something they could not understand.
“What’s the matter?” said Josephine Balsamo in a tone of anxiety.
Mother Vasseur dropped into a chair and murmured more clearly:
“Be off!... Bolt!... Be quick!”
“But why? Explain?” said the Countess.
The old woman got control of herself and said: