'Mary Quince!--she has follow us to France,' said Madame, making what in Ireland they call a bull. 'They are not sure where they will go or what will do for day or two more. I will go and get breakfast. Adieu for a moment.' Madame was out of the door as she said this, and I thought I heard the key turn in the lock. CHAPTER LXII _A WELL-KNOWN FACE LOOKS IN_ You who have never experienced it can have no idea how angry and frightened you become under the sinister insult of being locked into a room, as on trying the door I found I was. The key was in the lock; I could see it through the hole. I called after Madame, I shook at the solid oak-door, beat upon it with my hands, kicked it--but all to no purpose. I rushed into the next room, forgetting--if indeed I had observed it, that there was no door from it upon the gallery. I turned round in an angry and dismayed perplexity, and, like prisoners in romances, examined the windows. I was shocked and affrighted on discovering in reality what they occasionally find--a series of iron bars crossing the window! They were firmly secured in the oak woodwork of the window-frame, and each window was, besides, so compactly screwed down that it could not open. This bedroom was converted into a prison. A momentary hope flashed on me--perhaps all the windows were secured alike! But it was no such thing: these gaol-like precautions were confined to the windows to which I had access. For a few minutes I felt quite distracted; but I bethought me that I must now, if ever, control my terrors and exert whatever faculties I possessed. I stood upon a chair and examined the oak-work. I thought I detected marks of new chiselling here and there. The screws, too, looked new; and they and the scars on the woodwork were freshly smeared over with some coloured stuff by way of disguise. While I was making these observations, I heard the key stealthily stirred. I suspect that Madame wished to surprise me. Her approaching step, indeed, was seldom audible; she had the soft tread of the feline tribe. I was standing in the centre of the room confronting her when she entered. 'Why did you lock the door, Madame?' I demanded. She slipped in suddenly with an insidious smirk, and locked the door hastily. 'Hish!' whispered Madame, raising her broad palm; and then screwing in her cheeks, she made an ogle over her shoulder in the direction of the passage. 'Hish! be quiate, cheaile, weel you, and I weel tale you everything presently.' She paused, with her ear laid to the door. 'Now I can speak, ma chère; I weel tale a you there is bailiff in the house, two, three, four soche impertinent fallows! They have another as bad as themselve to make a leest of the furniture: we most keep them out of these rooms, dear Maud.' 'You left the key in the door on the outside,' I retorted; 'that was not to keep them out, but me in, Madame.'