"That is very amusing!"
"I had the dark room below well cleaned, and the trap has been screwed
down," said Don Teodoro. "I thought that there might be rats there.
Elettra has the room before yours. But you are tired, and you must be
hungry. It is my fault for not leaving you at once."
"But you will dine with me? To-night and every night, Don Teodoro--that
is understood."
Half an hour later, they sat down to table in the light of the lamp and
the six candles, in the room from which Veronica had looked out upon the
valley. But they were both too tired to talk, though they made faint
attempts at conversation, and as soon as the meal was over, the old
priest begged leave to go home.
"Do not be afraid," he said, as he bade Veronica good night. "There are
several men in the house. You are not all alone with your five women.
The foresters have their headquarters here."
Veronica was anything but timid or nervous, but when she was in bed in
her own room at the south corner of the castle, watching the shadows
cast up by the flickering night light upon the ancient tapestries, she
realized that she was very lonely indeed, she and scarcely a dozen
servants, in the vast fortress wherein a thousand men had once found
ample room to live. Brave as she was, she glanced once or twice at the
corner of the room where the trap-door was placed. There was a carpet
over it, and a table stood there which Elettra had arranged hastily for
the toilet table.
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