On opening my room door, with a little start, I met an extremely old woman with the longest face I ever saw; she had what used to be termed, a high-cauld-cap, on, the white border of which contrasted with her brown and yellow skin, and made her wrinkled face more ugly. She raised her curved shoulders, and looked up in my face, with eyes unnaturally black and bright. "I have lighted a little wood, Monsieur, because the night is chill." I thanked her, but she did not go. She stood with her candle in her tremulous fingers. "Excuse an old woman. Monsieur," she said; "but what on earth can a young English _milord_, with all Paris at his feet, find to amuse him in the Dragon Volant?" Had I been at the age of fairy tales, and in daily intercourse with the delightful Countess d'Aulnois, I should have seen in this withered apparition, the _genius loci_, the malignant fairy, at the stamp of whose foot, the ill-fated tenants of this very room had, from time to time, vanished. I was past that, however; but the old woman's dark eyes were fixed on mine, with a steady meaning that plainly told me that my secret was known. I was embarrassed and alarmed; I never thought of asking her what business that was of hers. "These old eyes saw you in the park of the château to-night." "_I!_" I began, with all the scornful surprise I could affect. "It avails nothing, Monsieur; I know why you stay here; and I tell you to begone. Leave this house to-morrow morning, and never come again." She lifted her disengaged hand, as she looked at me with intense horror in her eyes. "There is nothing on earth--I don't know what you mean," I answered; "and why should you care about me?" "I don't care about you, Monsieur--I care about the honour of an ancient family, whom I served in their happier days, when to be noble, was to be honoured. But my words are thrown away, Monsieur; you are insolent. I will keep my secret, and you, yours; that is all. You will soon find it hard enough to divulge it." The old woman went slowly from the room and shut the door, before I had made up my mind to say anything. I was standing where she had left me, nearly five minutes later. The jealousy of Monsieur the Count, I assumed, appears to this old creature about the most terrible thing in creation. Whatever contempt I might entertain for the dangers which this old lady so darkly intimated, it was by no means pleasant, you may suppose, that a secret so dangerous should be so much as suspected by a stranger, and that stranger a partisan of the Count de St. Alyre. Ought I not, at all risks, to apprize the Countess, who had trusted me so generously, or, as she said herself, so madly, of the fact that our secret was, at least, suspected by another? But was there not greater danger in attempting to communicate? What did the beldame mean by saying, "Keep your secret, and I'll keep mine?"