“The American!”

“This way.  He must have gone this way!”

The babel of voices was loud for a moment, then something silenced it, and there was the swift sound of a bolt shot home carefully.

CHAPTER XVII

SETH IS CAUTIOUS

It was doubtful whether any man, woman or child, not even excepting Richard Barrington himself, had any clear idea of Seth’s character, or the exact standpoint from which he viewed life and his fellows.  On the Virginian estate he had always led an isolated kind of existence, happier apparently in his own company than any other.  His devotion to his mistress and her boy was known, and passed for one of his peculiarities, had occasionally indeed been cast in his teeth as a selfish device for winning favor.  Barrington, as a boy, had made use of him, as a man he had brought him to France knowing that he was to be trusted, yet hardly realizing that Seth’s trustworthiness was rooted in love, such a love as men do not often receive.  Since they had landed in France, and danger had been as their very shadows, Richard had caught glimpses of this love, but had understood it rather in terms of comradeship than in any deeper sense, and had perhaps misinterpreted Seth’s keen desire to return forthwith to Virginia.  Seth, in short, was seldom able to express himself adequately, emotion scarcely ever sounded in his voice, and the expression of his face was a fixed and unchangeable one, somewhat dour and ill-tempered in aspect and reflecting nothing of the man within.

That his master had gone into imminent danger by keeping the appointment at the Chat Rouge, Seth was convinced, yet for three days he did nothing, nor did he plan anything in his mind.  He had been told to wait three days, and he waited, no look of anxiety in his eyes, no suppressed agitation or desire for action apparent in his manner.  He went out and came in as though these days had no particular interest for him, and ate and drank as a normal man with no care in his mind.  Precisely at the end of those three days, however, he began the labor which he had fully expected to be obliged to do—­the discovery of Richard Barrington’s whereabouts.  Seth knew that the Marquis de Lafayette had left Paris, or at least that his master had been told so, but, being disposed to take nothing for granted, it was to Lafayette’s apartments that he went first.

The servant who was still there did not remember him, and was not inclined to give any information.

“I don’t expect to see the Marquis though I asked for him,” Seth answered.  “I am Monsieur Barrington’s man, and it was you no doubt who delivered your master’s message to him.  Monsieur Barrington has gone.”

“I am glad.  I know the Marquis was anxious that he should leave Paris.”

“By gone I mean that I don’t know where he is,” said Seth, “but I don’t think he has left Paris.”