As the clock of the church struck ten I walked downstairs from my room, wearing a light short overcoat tightly buttoned up.  I informed the waiter that I was likely to be late, secured the loan of a latchkey, and left my good friend under the evident impression that I was about to range the shores of the bay in love-lorn solitude.  Then I took the footpath down the hill and, swinging along at a round pace, was fairly started on my journey.  If the inference I drew from the next thing I saw were correct, it was just as well for me to be out of the way for a little while.  For, when I was still about thirty yards from the main road, there dashed past the end of the lane leading up the hill a carriage and pair, traveling at full speed.  I could not see who rode inside; but two men sat on the box, and there was luggage on the top.  I could not be sure in the dim light, but I had a very strong impression that the carriage was the same as that which had conveyed Mme. Delhasse out of my sight earlier in the evening.  If it were so, and if the presence of the luggage indicated that of its owner, the good lady, arriving alone, must have met with the scantest welcome from the duke.  And she would return in a fury of anger and suspicion.  I was glad not to meet her; for if she were searching for explanation, I fancied, from glances she had given me, that I was likely to come in for a share of her attention.  In fact, she might reasonably have supposed that I was interested in her daughter; nor, indeed, would she have been wrong so far.

Briskly I pursued my way, and in something over an hour I reached the turn in the road and, setting my face inland, began to climb the hill.  A mile further on I came on a bypath, and not doubting from my memory of the direction, that this must be a short cut to the house, I left the road and struck along the narrow wooded track.  But, although shorter than the road, it was not very direct, and I found myself thinking it very creditable to the topographical instinct of my friend and successor, Pierre, that he should have discovered on a first visit, and without having been to the house, that this was the best route to follow.  With the knowledge of where the house lay, however, it was not difficult to keep right, and another forty minutes brought me, now creeping along very cautiously, alertly, and with open ears, to the door of old Jean’s little cottage.  No doubt he was fast asleep in his bed, and I feared the need of a good deal of noisy knocking before he could be awakened from a peasant’s heavy slumber.

My delight was therefore great when I discovered that—­either because he trusted his fellow-men, or because he possessed nothing in the least worth stealing—­he had left his door simply on the latch.  I lifted the latch and walked in.  A dim lantern burned on a little table near the smoldering log-fire.  Yet the light was enough to tell me that my involuntary host was not in the room.  I passed across its