woman's passage, if indeed she had moved from her hiding-place.

"This is very strange!" cried Philip.

Following the wall of the path, the two friends reached before long a
forest road leading to the village of Chauvry; they went along this
track in the direction of the highway to Paris, and reached another
large gateway. Through the railings they had a complete view of the
facade of the mysterious house. From this point of view, the
dilapidation was still more apparent. Huge cracks had riven the walls
of the main body of the house built round three sides of a square.
Evidently the place was allowed to fall to ruin; there were holes in
the roof, broken slates and tiles lay about below. Fallen fruit from
the orchard trees was left to rot on the ground; a cow was grazing
over the bowling-green and trampling the flowers in the garden beds; a
goat browsed on the green grapes and young vine-shoots on the trellis.

"It is all of a piece," remarked the Colonel. "The neglect is in a
fashion systematic." He laid his hand on the chain of the bell-pull,
but the bell had lost its clapper. The two friends heard no sound save
the peculiar grating creak of the rusty spring. A little door in the
wall beside the gateway, though ruinous, held good against all their
efforts to force it open.

"Oho! all this is growing very interesting," Philip said to his
companion.

"If I were not a magistrate," returned M. d'Albon, "I should think
that the woman in black is a witch."