Jean stopped at the end of the path where it entered the park, and his young friend, having given him some of his best cigars to encourage him to be patient, rode toward the house along a path of discouraging neatness. Not a blade of grass, not a twig of ivy covered the nakedness of those high walls, painted an iron-gray, and the only architectural bit that caught his eye was an escutcheon over the iron gate, bearing the arms of Boisguilbault, which had been scraped and retouched more recently than the rest, perhaps at the time of the return of the Bourbons; at all events there was a marked difference between this crest and its ponderous framework. Emile drew the inference that the marquis set much store by his titles and ancient privileges. He rang a long while at an enormous gate before it opened; at last a spring was pressed somewhere in the distance that made it turn on its hinges, although nobody appeared; and, the young man having passed through after tying his horse, the gate closed behind him with little noise, as if an invisible hand had caught him in a trap. A feeling of depression, almost of terror, took possession of him when he found himself imprisoned as it were in a large, bare, gravelled courtyard, surrounded by buildings of uniform size, and as silent as the graveyard of a convent. A number of yews, trimmed to a point and planted in front of the main doorways, added to the resemblance. For the rest, not a flower, not a breath of fragrance from a plant, not a sprig of vine about the windows, not a spider's-web on the panes, not a broken pane, not a human sound, not even the crowing of a cock or the bark of a dog; not a pigeon, not a patch of moss on the roofs; I verily believe that not even an insect ventured to fly or buzz in the courtyard of Boisguilbault. Emile was looking about for some one to speak to, seeing not even a footprint on the freshly raked gravel, when he heard a shrill, cracked voice call to him in a far from pleasing tone: "What does monsieur want?" After turning about several times to see where the voice came from, Emile finally discovered at an air-hole of a basement kitchen, an old, well-powdered white head, with light, expressionless eyes; and, drawing nearer, he tried to make himself heard. But the old butler's hearing was as weak as his sight, and he answered the visitor's questions at random. "The park can't be seen except on Sunday," he said; "take the trouble to come again Sunday." Emile handed him his card, and the old man, slowly taking his spectacles from his pocket, without leaving his subterranean air-hole, slowly examined it; after which he disappeared to reappear at a door just above his hole. "Very good, monsieur," he said; "monsieur le marquis ordered me to admit the person who came from Monsieur Cardonnet; Monsieur Cardonnet of Gargilesse, isn't it?" Emile bowed in assent.