Monsieur de Boisguilbault, having closed the gate behind him, bade the carpenter take the reins and follow him at a foot-pace to a sort of gardener's shed where Emile often hitched Corbeau when he came late or expected to stay late; and while Jean busied himself putting poor Lanterne and Monsieur Antoine's barrow under cover, the marquis offered Gilberte his arm, saying: "I am distressed to ask you to walk a few steps on the gravel; but you will not have time to wet your feet, for my hermitage is right here, behind these rocks." Gilberte shuddered from head to foot as she entered the chalet, alone with that strange old man whom she had always believed to be a little mad, and who now led the way into the darkness. She was somewhat relieved when he opened a second door, and she saw the corridor lighted by a lamp which stood in a niche decorated with flowers. That retreat, so luxurious and comfortable despite its rustic exterior, pleased her exceedingly, and in her youthful imagination, enamored of poetic simplicity, she fancied that she had found the sort of palace of which she had often dreamed. Since Emile had been admitted to the mysterious chalet, notable improvements had been made there. He had impressed upon the old man that the stoical habits by which he undertook to protest against his own wealth were beginning to be too severe for a man of his years; and, although Monsieur de Boisguilbault was not as yet attacked by any serious infirmity he admitted that he had suffered much from the cold there during the winter. Emile had himself brought from the château carpets, hangings, thick curtains and suitable furniture; he had frequently lighted a fire in the huge stove for protection against the dampness on rainy nights, and the marquis had yielded to the pleasant sensation of being cared for, a sensation entirely mental to him, in which he saw the proof of a zealous and delicate affection. The young man had also rearranged and beautified the room in which he and the old man often took their evening meal. He had made it into a sort of salon, and Gilberte was delighted to place her little feet, for the first time in her life, on superb bearskin rugs, and to gaze in admiration at the beautiful vases of old Sèvres, filled with the rarest flowers, standing on a marble console. The fireplace, filled with very dry pine cones, blazed up as if by enchantment when the marquis tossed in a piece of burning paper, and the candles, reflected in a mirror, the oaken frame of which was curiously carved and twisted, soon filled the room with a brilliant light dazzling to the eyes of a girl accustomed to the poor little lamp to which Janille supplied oil with a sparing hand, after the example of the woman in the Bible.