“Ah,” Lerne had said to me, “I am using your room.” Who, then, lived in it?
I was determined to find out somehow. If the hidden presence of Nell in the gray buildings invested them with a new interest, mysterious as they already were, the closed rooms of the château became yet another center of attraction.
At last my objectives were clearing.
And as the prospect of hunting down the secret made me quiver with excitement, a presentiment warned me that I should do well to pursue it to the death, and so defy Lerne’s first command before breaking the second.
“Let me find out first what it is all about,” said my conscience; “there is something wrong. After that, I can attend to the baggage in peace.”
Why did I not follow my own advice? But conscience speaks in a very low voice, and who can hear it when passion begins to blare?
CHAPTER V
“THE MADMAN”
A week later on, I was in ambush behind the door of my former bedroom—the yellow one—with my eye to the keyhole.