Madame laughed, and replied that she did not believe in ghosts; that she and her husband had laid a heavy bet on the point of sleeping in the haunted chamber, and surely Monsieur would not be the cause of their losing it. With a pale face and slow steps, the major-domo went out to order a bed, and other preparations to be made in the room, for Madame and her husband—Ninon enacting that _rôle_ in her masculine attire; and shortly after the two retired for the night, conducted to the door of the apartment by the pale-faced, agitated steward. No sooner were they alone than Madame Arnoul proceeded to make a close inspection of the wainscotted walls. Presently an exclamation of delight escaped her. “See here,” she cried, and slipping her hand inside the gaping jaws of a hideous, reptile-like monster, carved in the woodwork of a panel just beside the bed, she pressed a knob in its throat, and the panel slid aside into a groove, disclosing beyond a much larger chamber, luxuriously furnished, and bearing evidence of being ready prepared for an occupant—“No less a person than His Majesty, Louis XIV.,” explained Madame Arnoul, as she crossed the room towards the splendid Carrara marble chimneypiece supported at the corners by cherubim. Into the ear of one of them Madame put her finger, with the result of again sending open the panel, which, not a little to the nervous terror of Ninon, had closed behind them. The walls of this great State chamber were covered with gilded russia leather, which entirely concealed the movable panel between the rooms. Madame Arnoul laughingly began to reassure her disturbed companion. “It was quite true,” she said, “that a great many persons had been found dead from strangulation in that smaller chamber, some century earlier; but the ghosts were not responsible.” The guilt lay with the then lord of the manor, the Comte de Ribeauvillé, who, ruined by debauch and gambling, enticed rich passing travellers to spend the night in his castle, lodged them in this bedchamber, and stealing in by the secret ways during the night, strangled and robbed his unfortunate guests. While Madame Arnoul told her tale, there was a knock at the door of the apartment, and the baggage of the two travellers was brought in and deposited on the floor. When they were alone again, Madame Arnoul, opening one of the trunks, drew forth a magnificent robe of brocade, a _cordon bleu_, and a small medallion locket, containing the portrait of Anne of Austria. Leading Ninon to a mirror, she placed the locket in her hands, and bade her compare her own countenance with that of the dead queen. A few touches here and there, a little filling out with stuffing, and Ninon would be the very double of the queen: Louis himself could not know them apart.