"Do you hear the rats?" she would say. "How can we catch them? These old houses are infested with them." She spoke so firmly that even the ghost itself believed it was a rat, and scuttled away out of hearing. To reach the north wing, where her three girls and their governess lived, Madame de Sainfoy had to mount a short flight of steps from the hall, then to go along a vaulted corridor lighted only by a small lucarne window here and there, then down a staircase which brought her to the level of the great salons and the dining-room at the opposite end, which formerly, like this north wing, had hung over the moat, but were now being brought nearer the ground by Monsieur de Sainfoy's earthworks. This old north wing had been less restored than any other part of the château. The passage which ran through it, only lighted by a window at the foot of the staircase, ended at the arched door of a silent, deserted chapel with an altar on its east side, a quaint figure of Our Lady in a carved niche, and a window half-darkened with ivy leaves, overhanging the green and damp depths of the moat, now empty of water. Before reaching the chapel--lonely and neglected, but not desecrated, for by the care of Madame de la Marinière mass had been said in it once a year--there were four doors, two on each side of the corridor. The first on the left was that of the room where Sophie and Lucie both slept and did their lessons, a large room looking out west to the gardens and woods behind Lancilly; and opening from this, with a separate door into the passage, was Mademoiselle Moineau's room. On the right the rooms were smaller, the chapel cutting them off to the north, with a secret staircase in the thickness of the wall by the altar. A maid slept in the first; and the second, nearest the chapel, but with a wide, cheerful view of its own across the valley to the east, was Hélène's room. Madame de Sainfoy, after disposing of Hervé and hearing all that Urbain had to tell her, with digressions to the almost equally interesting subject of silk hangings, set off across the château to inspect the young people at their lessons. She was an excellent mother. She did not, like so many women, leave her children entirely to the consciences of their teachers. Her firm step, the sharp touch which lifted the heavy old latch, straightened the backs of Sophie and Lucie as if by magic. Lucie looked at her mother in terror. Too often her round shoulders caught that unsparing eye, and the dreaded backboard was firmly strapped on before Madame de Sainfoy left the room; for Lucie, growing tall and inclined to stoop, was going through the period of torture which Hélène, for the same reason, had endured before her. They all got up, including Mademoiselle Moineau. The two girls went to kiss their mother's hand; Henriette, more slowly, followed their example. "I hope your new pupil is obedient, mademoiselle," said Madame de Sainfoy, as her cold glance met the child's fearless eyes.