By standing on the granite benches, which ran like steps along the side of the walls, in the embrasure of the window, we could see the moat outside and the ruined parts of the fortress. But as we came in we had noticed a staircase cut out of the solid wall, and we were childishly eager to extend our discoveries. We began the ascent, I leading, and Mlle. Marguerite following bravely, and managing her long skirts as best she could. The view from the platform at the top is vast and exquisite. The soft hues of twilight tinged the ocean of half-golden autumnal foliage, the gloomy marshes, the fresh pastures, and the distant horizons of intersecting slopes, which mingled and succeeded each other in endless perspective. Gazing on this gracious landscape, in its infinite melancholy, the peace of solitude, the silence of evening, the poetry of ancient days fell like some potent spell upon our hearts and spirits. This hour of common contemplation and emotions of purest, deepest pleasure, no doubt the last I should spend with her, I entered into with an almost painful violence of enjoyment. I do not know what Marguerite was feeling; she had sat down on the ledge of the parapet, and was gazing into the distance in silence. I cannot say how many moments passed in this way. When the mists gathered in the lower meadows, and the distant landscape began to fade into the growing darkness, Marguerite rose. "Come," she said in a low voice, as if the curtain had fallen on some beautiful spectacle; "come; it’s over." She began to descend the stairs, and I followed her. But when we tried to get out of the donjon, to our great surprise we found the door closed. Most likely the doorkeeper, not knowing that we were there, had locked it while we were on the platform. At first this amused us. The tower was really an enchanted tower. I made some vigorous efforts to break the spell, but the huge bolt of the old lock was firmly fixed in its granite socket, and I had to give up all hope of moving it. I attacked the door itself, but the massive hinges and the oak panels studded with iron stolidly resisted all my efforts. Some stone mullions, which I found among the rubbish and hurled against the door, only shook the vault and brought some fragments from it to our feet. Mlle. Marguerite at last made me give up a task that was hopeless, and not without danger. I then ran to the window and shouted, but no one replied. For ten minutes I continued shouting, and to no purpose. We took advantage of the last rays of light to explore the interior of the donjon very carefully. But the door, which was as good as walled up for us, and the large window, thirty feet above the moat, were the only exits we could discover.