Before entering it I examined the curtain-cord of the window and found that I had only to release it from its fastening with my fingers for the curtain to fall by its own weight and hide the square of light from Rouletabille—the signal agreed upon. The sound of a footstep made me halt before Arthur Rance’s door. He was not yet in bed, then! How was it that, being in the château, he had not dined with Monsieur Stangerson and his daughter? I had not seen him at table with them, at the moment when we looked in. I retired into the dark closet. I found myself perfectly situated. I could see along the whole length of the gallery. Nothing, absolutely nothing could pass there without my seeing it. But what was going to pass there? Rouletabille’s embrace came back to my mind. I argued that people don’t part from each other in that way unless on an important or dangerous occasion. Was I then in danger? My hand closed on the butt of my revolver and I waited. I am not a hero; but neither am I a coward. I waited about an hour, and during all that time I saw nothing unusual. The rain, which had begun to come down strongly towards nine o’clock, had now ceased. My friend had told me that, probably, nothing would occur before midnight or one o’clock in the morning. It was not more than half-past eleven, however, when I heard the door of Arthur Rance’s room open very slowly. The door remained open for a minute which seemed to me a long time. As it opened into the gallery, that is to say, outwards, I could not see what was passing in the room behind the door. At that moment I noticed a strange sound, three times repeated, coming from the park. Ordinarily I should not have attached any more importance to it than I would to the noise of cats on the roof. But the third time, the mew was so sharp and penetrating that I remembered what I had heard about the cry of the Bête du bon Dieu. As the cry had accompanied all the events at the Glandier, I could not refrain from shuddering at the thought. Directly afterwards I saw a man appear on the outside of the door, and close it after him. At first I could not recognise him, for his back was towards me and he was bending over a rather bulky package. When he had closed the door and picked up the package, he turned towards the dark closet, and then I saw who he was. He was the forest-keeper, the Green Man. He was wearing the same costume that he had worn when I first saw him on the road in front of the Donjon Inn. There was no doubt about his being the keeper. As the cry of the Bête du Bon Dieu came for the third time, he put down the package and went to the second window, counting from the dark closet. I dared not risk making any movement, fearing I might betray my presence.