The officer led the way across a dirty, ill-paved courtyard, and entered a building beyond it of greater size, but apparently not less dilapidated than that they had quitted. From the hall, which was lighted with a large lamp, they could perceive through an open door a range of stables filled with horses; at the opposite side a door corresponding with this one, at which a dragoon stood with his carbine on his arm. At a word from the officer the soldier moved aside and permitted them to enter. The room into which they proceeded was large, but almost destitute of furniture. A common deal table stood in the middle, littered with military cloaks, swords, and shakos. In one corner was a screen, from behind which the only light proceeded; and, with a gesture towards this, the officer motioned Darcy to advance, while with noiseless footsteps he himself withdrew. Darcy moved forward, and soon came within the space enclosed by the screen, and in front of an officer in a plain uniform, who was busily engaged in writing. Maps, returns, printed orders, and letters lay strewed about him, and in the small brazier of burning wood beside him might be seen the charred remains of a great heap of papers. Darcy had full a minute to contemplate the figure before him ere he was noticed. The Frenchman was short and muscular, with a thick, bushy head of hair, bald in the centre of the head. His features were full of intelligence and quickness, but more unmistakably denoted violence of temper, and the coarse nature of one not born to his present rank, which seemed, at least, that of a field officer. His hands were covered with rings, but their shape and color scarcely denoted that such ornaments were native to them. “Ha,--the English colonel,--sit down, sir,” said he to Darcy, pointing to a chair without rising from his own. Darcy seated himself with the easy composure of one who felt that in any situation his birth and breeding made him unexceptionable company. “I wished to see you, sir. I have received orders, that is,” said he, speaking with the greatest rapidity, and a certain thickness of utterance very difficult to follow, “to send for you here, and make certain inquiries, your answers to which will entirely decide the conduct of the Commander-in-Chief in your behalf. You are not aware, perhaps, how completely you have put this in our power?” “I suppose,” said Darcy, smiling, “my condition as a prisoner of war makes me subject to the usual hardships of such a lot; but I am not aware of anything, peculiar to my case, that would warrant you in proposing even one question which a gentleman and a British officer could refuse to answer.” “There is exactly such an exception,” replied the Frenchman, hastily. “The proofs are very easy, and nearer at hand than you think of.” “You have certainly excited my curiosity, sir,” said the Knight, with composure; “you will excuse my saying that the feeling is unalloyed by any fear.”