Viewed from the summit of the cliff on which Davenant’s motor had stopped, the chateau was composed of two ancient towers guarding the long, and relatively low, relatively modern, brick mansion of the epoch of Louis Treize.  The brick, once red, had toned down now to a soft old rose; the towers, once white, were splashed above the line to which the ivy climbed with rose and orange.  Over the tip of the bluff and down its side of southern exposure, toward the village of Melcourt, ran a park of oak and chestnut, in all the October hues of yellow and olive-brown.

But ten minutes later, when the motor had made a detour round cliffs and little inlets and arrived at the main entrance to the chateau, Davenant found the aspect of things less intimidating.  Through a high wrought-iron grille, surmounted by the head of an armorial beast, he had the view of a Lenotre garden, all scrolls and arabesques.  The towers, which at a distance had seemed part of a continuous whole, now detached themselves.  The actual residence was no more imposing than any good-sized house in America.  Davenant understood the chauffeur to say that “Madame la marquise l’avait modernise jusqu’au bout des ongles.”

Having summoned up courage to ring the bell, he found it answered by a middle-aged woman with a face worn by time and weather to the polished grooves and creases to which water wears a rock.

“On ne visite pas le chateau.”

She made the statement with the stony, impersonal air of one who has to say the same thing a good many times a year.  Davenant pressed close to the grille, murmuring something of which she caught the word “Madame.”

“Madame la marquise n’est pas visible.”

The quick Norman eye had, however, noticed the movement of Davenant’s hand, detecting there something more than a card.  In speaking she edged nearer the grille.  Thrusting his fingers between the curves of the iron arabesques, he said, in his best French:  “Prenez.”

Measuring time by the pounding of his heart rather than the ticking of his watch, it seemed to him he had a long time to wait before the woman reappeared, handing him back his card through the openwork of the grille, saying briefly:  “Madame la marquise ne recoit pas.”  Perhaps it was the crestfallen look in the blond giant’s face that tempted her to add:  “Je le regrette, monsieur.”

In the compassionate tone he read a hint that all was not lost.  Scribbling under his name the words:  “Boston, Mass.  Very urgent,” he once more passed the card through the grille, accompanied by the manual act that had won the woman’s sympathy in the first place.

“Allez, please,” he said, earnestly, “and—­vite.”

He found his penciled words effective, for presently the woman came back.  “Venez, monsieur,” she said, as she unlocked the grille with a large key carried beneath her apron.  Her stony official manner had returned.