"Master Elyot," said the woman, who was in advance, as we have seen, "do you mind letting us go into the château? I have something to say to Monsieur Gabriel" (pointing to the young man), "and I can only say it in the _salon d'honneur_." "Come in, Dame Aloyse," said Elyot, "and say what you have to say to young master here, wherever you choose. You know very well that unhappily there is no one here to interrupt you." They passed through the _salle des gardes_. Formerly twelve men, raised upon the estates, used to be on guard without intermission in that apartment. During fifteen years seven of these men had died, and their places had not been filled. Five of them were left; and they still lived there, doing the same duty as in the count's time, and waiting till their turn to die should come. They passed through the gallery and entered the _salon d'honneur_. It was furnished just as it had been the day that the last count had left it. But this salon, where in former days all the Norman nobility had used to assemble, as in the salon of a lord paramount, not a soul had entered for fifteen years, save the servants whose duty it was to keep it in order, and a faithful dog, the last count's pet, who every time that he entered the room called for his master mournfully, and at last had refused to go out one day, and had stretched himself out at the foot of the dais, where they found him the next morning, dead. It was not without emotion that Gabriel (such was the name that had been given to the young man by his companion) entered this salon, with its memories of other days. However, the impression made upon him by these gloomy walls, the majestic dais, and the windows cut so deep into the wall that although it was only ten in the morning, the daylight seemed to have stopped at the threshold,--the impression, we repeat, was not strong enough to divert his mind for a single moment from the purpose which had drawn him thither; and as soon as the door was closed behind him, he turned to his companion.