I knew, therefore, I should have ample time for my mysterious excursion
without exciting curiosity by being shut out.
And now we pulled up under the canopy of boughs, before the sign of the
Dragon Volant, and the light that shone from its hall-door.
I dismissed my carriage, ran up the broad stair-case, mask in hand, with
my domino fluttering about me, and entered the large bedroom. The black
wainscoting and stately furniture, with the dark curtains of the very
tall bed, made the night there more somber.
An oblique patch of moonlight was thrown upon the floor from the window
to which I hastened. I looked out upon the landscape slumbering in those
silvery beams. There stood the outline of the Chateau de la Carque, its
chimneys and many turrets with their extinguisher-shaped roofs black
against the soft grey sky. There, also, more in the foreground, about
midway between the window where I stood and the chateau, but a little to
the left, I traced the tufted masses of the grove which the lady in the
mask had appointed as the trysting-place, where I and the beautiful
Countess were to meet that night.
I took "the bearings" of this gloomy bit of wood, whose foliage
glimmered softly at top in the light of the moon.
You may guess with what a strange interest and swelling of the heart I
gazed on the unknown scene of my coming adventure.
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