“I expected Picard to meet us,” he said.

“Probably they’re all worn out, and anticipating no danger, have gone to sleep,” said Weber.

The candle was still burning in the bureau, and John, picking it up, hurried into the smoking-room.  A sudden, terrible fear had struck like a dagger at his heart.  The silence, and the absence of Picard filled him with alarm.  In the smoking-room he held the candle aloft, and then he uttered a cry.

The room was in a state of utter disorder.  Chairs, tables and writing-desks were overturned, and glass was smashed.  It was evident to both that a mighty struggle had taken place there, but no blood was shed.  John’s keen mind inferred at once that Picard had been set upon without warning by many men, but they had struggled to take him alive.  Nothing else could account for the wrecked furniture, and the absence of red stains.

His fears now became a horrible certainty, and without a thought of Weber, rushing up the stairway, candle in hand, he knocked at the door of Julie’s room, the room that she and Suzanne were to occupy together.  There was no answer.  He knocked again, loud and long.  Still no answer and his heart froze within him.  He threw the door open and rushed in, mechanically holding his candle aloft, and, by the dim light it shed, looked about him, aghast.

This room also was in disorder.  A chair had been overturned and a mirror had been broken.  There had been a struggle here too, and he had no doubt that Suzanne had fought almost as well as her father.  But she and Julie were gone.  To John the room fairly ached with emptiness.

He put the candle upon the dresser, sat down, dropped his face in his hands and groaned.

“Be of good courage, Mr. Scott,” said Weber.  “No great harm can have happened to Mademoiselle Lannes.”

“It was the Germans whom you saw.  They must have come here while we were looking for them on the outskirts of the town.”

“It would seem so.  But don’t be downhearted, Mr. Scott.  Doubtless they’ve made captives of Mademoiselle Lannes and her attendants, but they have not done any bodily harm even to the big Picard.  The absence of all blood shows it.  And the Germans would not injure a woman like Mademoiselle Lannes.  A prisoner, she is safe in their hands, she can be rescued as she was once before or more likely be sent back to her own people.”

“But, Weber, we do not know what will happen in a war like this, so vast, so confused, and with passions beginning to run so high.  And I was away when she was taken!  I who should have been on guard every moment!  How can I ever meet Philip’s look!  How can I ever answer my own reproaches!”

“You have nothing with which to reproach yourself, Mr. Scott.  You did what anyone naturally would have done under such circumstances.  It has been a chance, the one dangerous possibility out of a hundred, that has gone against us.”