I was loth to let him touch me; but he continued to stand over me, pointing and grinning with dark persistence, and, rather than stand on a trifle, I sat down at last, and gave him his way. He bathed my head carefully enough, and I dare say did it good; but I understood. I knew that his only desire was to learn whether the cut was real or a pretence. I began to fear him more and more, and, until he was gone from the room, dared scarcely lift my face, lest he should read too much in it.
Alone, even, I felt uncomfortable. This seemed so sinister a business, and so ill begun. I was in the house. But Madame's frank voice haunted me, and the dumb man's eyes, full of suspicion and menace. When I presently got up and tried my door, I found it locked. The room smelled dank and close--like a vault. I could not see through the barred window; but I could hear the boughs sweep it in ghostly fashion; and I guessed that it looked out where the wood grew close to the walls of the house; and that even in the day the sun never peeped through it.
Nevertheless, tired and worn out, I slept at last. When I awoke the room was full of grey light, the door stood open, and Louis, looking ashamed of himself, waited by my pallet with a cup of wine in his hand, and some bread and fruit on a platter.
"Will Monsieur be good enough to rise?" he said. "It is eight o'clock."
"Willingly," I answered tartly. "Now that the door is unlocked."
He turned red. "It was an oversight," he stammered. "Clon is accustomed to lock the door, and he did it inadvertently, forgetting that there was any one--"
"Inside!" I said drily.
"Precisely, Monsieur."
"Ah!" I replied. "Well, I do not think the oversight would please Madame de Cocheforêt, if she heard of it?"
"If Monsieur would have the kindness not to--"