"Hallo!" cried Edouard.
He stopped, turned, and looked in.
"Hallo!" he cried again much louder.
A young woman was sleeping with her feet in the silvery moonlight, and
her head in the orange-colored blaze of a flat candle, which rested on
the next step above of a fine stone staircase, whose existence was now
first revealed to the inquisitive Edouard.
Coming plump upon all this so unexpectedly, he quite started.
"Why, Jacintha!"
He touched her on the shoulder to wake her. No. Jacintha was sleeping as
only tired domestics can sleep. He might have taken the candle and burnt
her gown off her back. She had found a step that fitted into the small
of her back, and another that supported her head, and there she was fast
as a door.
At this moment Raynal's voice was heard calling him.
"There is a light in that bedroom."
"It is not a bedroom, colonel; it is our sitting-room now. We shall find
them all there, or at least the young ladies; and perhaps the doctor.
The baroness goes to bed early. Meantime I can show you one of our
dramatis personae, and an important one too.
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