The seals being once imposed, there was no means, in the absence of a verified will, of ascertaining on whom the inheritance devolved, until the opening of the inventory; and thus the Sejournants awaited with feverish anxiety the return of the justice of the peace and his bailiff.
M.Destourbet and Stephen Seurrot pushed open a small door to the right of the main gateway, passed rapidly under the arched canopy of beeches, the leaves of which, just touched by the first frost, were already falling from the branches, and, stamping their muddy feet on the outer steps, advanced into the vestibule.

The wide corridor, flagged with black-and-white pavement, presented a cheerless aspect of bare walls discolored by damp, and adorned alternately by stags' heads and family portraits in a crumbling state of decay.

The floor was thus divided: on the right, the dining-room and the kitchen; on the left, drawing-room and a billiard-hall.

A stone staircase, built in one of the turrets, led to the upper floors.

Only one of these rooms, the kitchen, which the justice and his bailiff entered, was occupied by the household.