At once all Dennistoun’s cherished dreams of finding priceless manuscripts in untrodden corners of France flashed up, to die down again the next moment.  It was probably a stupid missal of Plantin’s printing, about 1580.  Where was the likelihood that a place so near Toulouse would not have been ransacked long ago by collectors?  However, it would be foolish not to go; he would reproach himself for ever after if he refused.  So they set off.  On the way the curious irresolution and sudden determination of the sacristan recurred to Dennistoun, and he wondered in a shamefaced way whether he was being decoyed into some purlieu to be made away with as a supposed rich Englishman.  He contrived, therefore, to begin talking with his guide, and to drag in, in a rather clumsy fashion, the fact that he expected two friends to join him early the next morning.  To his surprise, the announcement seemed to relieve the sacristan at once of some of the anxiety that oppressed him.

“That is well,” he said quite brightly—­“that is very well.  Monsieur will travel in company with his friends; they will be always near him.  It is a good thing to travel thus in company—­sometimes.”

The last word appeared to be added as an afterthought, and to bring with it a relapse into gloom for the poor little man.

They were soon at the house, which was one rather larger than its neighbors, stone-built, with a shield carved over the door, the shield of Alberic de Mauleon, a collateral descendant, Dennistoun tells me, of Bishop John de Mauleon.  This Alberic was a Canon of Comminges from 1680 to 1701.  The upper windows of the mansion were boarded up, and the whole place bore, as does the rest of Comminges, the aspect of decaying age.

Arrived on his doorstep, the sacristan paused a moment.

“Perhaps,” he said, “perhaps, after all, monsieur has not the time?”

“Not at all—­lots of time—­nothing to do till to-morrow.  Let us see what it is you have got.”

The door was opened at this point, and a face looked out, a face far younger than the sacristan’s, but bearing something of the same distressing look:  only here it seemed to be the mark, not so much of fear for personal safety as of acute anxiety on behalf of another.  Plainly, the owner of the face was the sacristan’s daughter; and, but for the expression I have described, she was a handsome girl enough.  She brightened up considerably on seeing her father accompanied by an able-bodied stranger.  A few remarks passed between father and daughter, of which Dennistoun only caught these words, said by the sacristan, “He was laughing in the church,” words which were answered only by a look of terror from the girl.