“Please don’t be alarmed.  I have lost the path.”  Stewart’s voice was almost equally nervous.  “Is it to the right or the left?”

It was a moment before Harmony had breath to speak.  Then:—­

“To the right a dozen paces or so.”

“Thank you.  Perhaps I can help you to find it.”

“I know it quite well.  Please don’t bother.”

The whole situation was so unexpected that only then did it dawn on Stewart that this blacker shadow was a countrywoman speaking God’s own language.  Together, Harmony a foot or so in advance, they made the path.

“The house is there.  Ring hard, the bell is out of order.”

“Are you not coming in?”

“No.  I—­I do not live here.”

She must have gone just after that.  Stewart, glancing at the dark facade of the house, turned round to find her gone, and a moment later heard the closing of the gate.  He was bewildered.  What sort of curious place was this, a great looming house that concealed in its garden a fugitive American girl who came and went like a shadow, leaving only the memory of a sweet voice strained with fright?

Stewart was full of his encounter as he took the candle the Portier gave him and followed the gentleman’s gruff directions up the staircase.  Peter admitted him, looking a trifle uneasy, as well he might with Marie in the salon.

Stewart was too preoccupied to notice Peter’s expression.  He shook the rain off his hat, smiling.

“How are you?” asked Peter dutifully.

“Pretty good, except for a headache when I’m tired.  What sort of a place have you got here anyhow, Byrne?”

“Old hunting-lodge of Maria Theresa,” replied Peter, still preoccupied with Marie and what was coming.  “Rather interesting old place.”

“Rather,” commented Stewart, “with goddesses in the garden and all the usual stunts.”

“Goddesses?”

“Ran into one just now among the trees.  ’A woman I forswore, but thou being a goddess I forswore not thee.’  English-speaking goddess, by George!”

Peter was staring at him incredulously; now he bent forward and grasped his arm in fingers of steel.

“For Heaven’s sake, Stewart, tell me what you mean!  Who was in the garden?”

Stewart was amused and interested.  It was not for him to belittle a situation of his own making, an incident of his own telling.

“I lost my way in your garden, wandered among the trees, broke through a hedgerow or two, struck a match and consulted the compass—­”

Peter’s fingers closed.

“Quick,” he said.

Stewart’s manner lost its jauntiness.

“There was a girl there,” he said shortly.  “Couldn’t see her.  She spoke English.  Said she didn’t live here, and broke for the gate the minute I got to the path.”

“You didn’t see her?”

“No.  Nice voice, though.  Young.”

The next moment he was alone.  Peter in his dressing-gown was running down the staircase to the lower floor, was shouting to the Portier to unlock the door, was a madman in everything but purpose.  The Portier let him out and returned to the bedroom.