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windows and occasional doors. At intervals they went through double archways supporting buildings that straddled the passage and darkened it. They passed an open doorway and saw into a cave-like room where an old woman sat among shelves filled with small gaily painted figures. As Troy passed, the woman smiled at her and gestured invitingly, holding up a little clay goat.
    Dr Baradi was telling them about the Chèvre d’Argent.
    “It is a fortress built originally by the Saracens. One might almost say it was sculpted out of the mountain, isn’t it? The Normans stormed it on several occasions. There are legends of atrocities and so on. The fortress is, in effect, a village since the many caves beneath and around it have been shaped into dwellings and house a number of peasants, some dependent on the château and some, like the woman you have noticed, upon their own industry. The château itself is most interesting, indeed unique. But not inconvenient. Mr. Oberon has, with perfect tact, introduced the amenities. We are civilized, as you shall see.”
    They arrived at a double gate of wrought iron let into the wall on their left. An iron bell hung beside it. A butler appeared beyond the doors and opened them. They passed through a courtyard into a wide hall with deep-set windows through which a cool ineffectual light was admitted.
    Without at first taking any details of this shadowed interior, Troy received an impression of that particular kind of suavity that is associated with costliness. The rug under her feet, the texture and colour of the curtains, the shape of cabinets and chairs and, above all, a smell which she thought must arise from the burning sweet-scented oils, all united to give this immediate reaction. “Mr. Oberon,” she thought, “must be immensely rich.” Almost at the same time she saw above the great fireplace a famous Brueghel which, she remembered, had been sold privately some years ago. It was called: “Consultation of Sorceresses.” An open door showed a stone stairway built inside the thickness of the wall.
    “The stairs,” Dr. Baradi said, “are a little difficult. Therefore we have prepared rooms on this floor.”
    He pulled back a leather curtain. The men carried Miss Truebody into a heavily carpeted stone passage hung at intervals with rugs and lit with electric lights fitted into ancient hanging lamps, witnesses, Troy supposed, of Mr. Oberon’s tact in modernization. She heard Miss Truebody raise her piping cry of distress.
    Dr. Baradi said: “Perhaps you would be so kind as to assist her into bed?”
    Troy hurried after the stretcher and followed it into a small bedroom charmingly furnished and provided, she noticed, with an adjoining bathroom. The two bearers waited with an obliging air for further instructions. As Baradi had not accompanied them, Troy supposed that she herself was for the moment in command. She got Miss Truebody off the stretcher and onto the bed. The bearers hovered solicitously. She thanked them in her school-girl French and managed to get them out of the room, but not before they had persuaded her into the passage, opened a further door, and exhibited with evident pride a bare freshly scrubbed room with a bare freshly scrubbed table near its window. A woman rose from her knees as the door opened, a scrubbing brush in her hand and a pail beside her. The room reeked of disinfectant. The indoor servant said something about it being “
convenable,
” and the gardener said something about somebody, she thought himself, being “
bienfatigué, infiniment fatigue
.” It dawned upon her that they wanted a tip. Poor Troy scuffled in her bag, produced a 500 franc note and gave it to the indoor servant, indicating that they were to share it. They thanked her and, effulgent with smiles, went back to get the luggage. She hurried to Miss Truebody and found her crying feverishly.
    Remembering what she could of hospital routine, Troy washed the patient, found a clean nightdress