Madame Barras had not arrived . . . he was quite sure; she had gone out to dinner somewhere and had not come in!

I was profoundly concerned.  But I took a moment to reflect before deciding what to do.

I stepped outside and there, coming up from the shadow of the porch, I met Sir Henry Marquis.

It was chance at its extreme of favor.  If I had been given the selection, in all the world, I should have asked for Sir Henry Marquis at that decisive moment.

The relief I felt made my words extravagant.

“Marquis!” I cried.  “You here!”

“Ah, Winthrop,” he said, in his drawling Oxford voice, “what have you done with Madame Barras; I was waiting for her?”

I told him, in a word, how she had set out from my house — my concern — the walk down here and this result.  I did not ask him at the moment how he happened to be here, or with a knowledge of our guest.  I thought that Marquis was in Canada.  But one does not, with success, inquire of a C.I.D. official even in his own country.  One met him in the most unexpected places, unconcerned, and one would have said at leisure.

But he was concerned to-night.  What I told brought him up.  He stood for a moment silent.  Then he said, softly, in order drat the clerk behind us might not overhear.

“Don’t speak of it.  I will get a light and go with you!”

He returned in a moment and we went out.  He asked me about the road, was there only one way down; and I told him precisely.  There was only the one road into the village and no way to miss it unless one turned into the public road at the point where it entered our private one along the mountain.

He pitched at once upon this point and we hurried back.

We had hardly a further word on the way.  I was decidedly uneasy about Madame Barras by now, and Marquis’ concern was hardly less evident.  He raced along in his immense stride, and I had all I could manage to keep up.

It may seem strange that I should have brought such a man as Sir Henry Marquis into the search of this adventure with so little explanation of my guest or the affair.  But, one must remember, Marquis was an old acquaintance frequently seen about in the world.  To thus, on the spot so to speak, draft into my service the first gentleman I found, was precisely what any one would have done.  It was probable, after all, that there had been some reason why the cut-under had taken the other road, and Madame Barras was quite all right.

It was better to make sure before one raised the village — and Marquis, markedly, was beyond any aid the village could have furnished.  This course was strikingly justified by every after-event.

I have said that the night was not dark.  The sky was hard with stars, like a mosaic.  This white moonlight entered through the tree-tops and in a measure illumined the road.  We were easily able to see, when we reached the point, that the cut-under had turned out into the road circling the mountain to the west of the village.  The track was so clearly visible in the light, that I must have observed it had I been thinking of the road instead of the one who had set out upon it.