Six days passed without anything occurring.  Impatient as Philip de la Vallee and Desmond were to get forward, they could not hurry the slow pace at which they travelled.  Mademoiselle Pointdexter was now suffering from the reaction after her month of captivity and anxiety.  The baron therefore travelled with provoking slowness.  Obtaining, as he did, relays of horses at each post, they could without difficulty have travelled at almost double the rate at which they actually proceeded, but stoppages were made at all towns at which comfortable accommodation could be obtained.  Indeed, in some places the roads were so bad that the carriage could not proceed at a pace beyond a walk, without inflicting a terrible jolting upon those within it.

“There is one comfort,” Philip said, when he had been bewailing the slowness of their pace, “my men should reach us at Nevers, at the latest, and you may take it as tolerably certain that any attempt to interfere with us will take place considerably south of that town.  I should guess that it would be somewhere between Moulins and Thiers.  If our escort does not come before we reach Moulins, I shall begin to think that your suggestion was correct, and that my messenger has indeed been intercepted and slain.”

Desmond could not gainsay the truth of his friend’s calculation, but he said: 

“Possibly, Philip, instead of being attacked by the way, de Tulle’s agents might rob him of his letter at one of the inns at which he put up.  Did he know its contents?”

“Yes.  I told him that it contained an order for the majordomo to ride, with a troop of twelve men, to meet us, and that he was to give what aid he could in getting them together as quickly as possible; so that, even if robbed of the letter, he might still be able to fulfil his mission.  Not, I own, that I thought of that at the time, for the idea that he might be stopped never once entered my mind.”

At Nevers, Desmond went round to all the inns in the town, to enquire if any body of men had put up at that place, but without success.  When he related his failure to obtain any news to Philip, the latter said: 

“Well, we must hope that we shall meet them before we arrive at Moulins.  If not, I shall no longer have any hope that my messenger got through safely, and then we shall have to consider whether it will not be necessary to inform the baron of our fears, and to get him to change his route and make a detour, cross the Loire at Bourbon, make for Maison, and then journey down on the other bank of the Saone as far as Pont Saint Esprit, and thence over the mountains to Florac.”

“That would certainly be the safest plan, always providing that we have not been watched ever since we left Paris.  The vicomte might well take this precaution, in case we should deviate from the regular route.”

“Sapriste!  Desmond, you are always full of evil prognostications.  Still, as usual, I cannot but allow that there is reason in them.”