“It’s in the servants’ wing,” said Cecil, anxious to be off.

“To be sure.  Stupid ass I am.  I say, old chap, here’s Deveaux’s door.  Let’s rout him out.  We’ll need some one to hold the horses if we have to force our way into Shaw’s house.”

The count was not thoroughly awake until he found himself in the saddle some time later; it is certain that he did not know until long afterward why they were riding off into the storm.  He fell so far behind his companions in the run down the road that he could ask no questions.  Right bravely the trio plunged into the dark territory over which the enemy ruled.  It was the duke who finally brought the cavalcade to a halt by propounding a most sensible question.

“Are you sure she came this way, Cecil?”

“Certainly.  This is Shaw’s way, isn’t it?”

“Did she say she was going to Shaw’s?”

“Don’t know.  Evelyn told me.  Hang it all, Barminster, come along.  We’ll never catch up to her.”

“Is she riding?”

“No—­horses all in.”

“Do you know, we may have passed her.  Deuce take it, Bazelhurst, if she’s running away from us, you don’t imagine she’d be such a silly fool as to stand in the road and wait for us.  If she heard us she’d hide among the trees.”

“But she’s had an hour’s start of us.”

“Where ees she coming to?” asked the count, with an anxious glance upward just in time to catch a skirmishing raindrop with his eye.

“That’s just it.  We don’t know,” said the duke.

“But I must find her,” cried Lord Cecil.  “Think of that poor girl alone in this terrible place, storm coming up and all that.  Hi, Penelope!” he shouted in his most vociferous treble.  The shrieking wind replied.  Then the three of them shouted her name.  “Gad, she may be lost or dead or—­Come on, Barminster.  We must scour the whole demmed valley.”  They were off again, moving more cautiously while the duke threw the light from his lamp into the leafy shadows beside the roadway.  The wind was blowing savagely down the slope and the raindrops were beginning to beat in their faces with ominous persistency.  Some delay was caused by an accident to the rear-guard.  A mighty gust of wind blew the count’s hat far back over the travelled road.  He was so much nearer Bazelhurst Villa when they found it that he would have kept on in that direction for the sake of his warm bed had not his companions talked so scornfully about cowardice.

“He’s like a wildcat to-night,” said the duke in an aside to the little Frenchman, referring to his lordship.  “Demme, I’d rather not cross him.  You seem to forget that his sister is out in all this fury.”

“Mon Dieu, but I do not forget.  I would gif half my life to hold her in my arms thees eenstan’.”

“Dem you, sir, I’d give her the other half if you dared try such a thing.  We didn’t fetch you along to hold her.  You’ve got to hold the horses, that’s all.”