The two clasped hands.

“I will return late to-morrow, or to-morrow night,” resumed Jean.  “It may even be the next day.  But I shall travel fast—­without rest.  And during that time you are on guard.  In my room you will find an extra rifle and cartridges.  Carry it when you go about.  And spend as much of your time as you can with the master of Adare.  Watch Josephine.  I will not see her again to-night.  Warn her for me.  She must not go alone in the forests—­not even to the dog pit.”

“I understand,” said Philip.

They entered the house.  Twenty minutes later, from the window of his room, Philip saw a dark figure walking swiftly back toward the forest.  Still later he heard the distant wail of a husky coming from the direction of the pit, and he knew that the first gun in the big fight had been fired—­that Jean Jacques Croisset was off on his thrilling mission into the depths of the forests.  What that mission was he had not asked him.  But he had guessed.  And his blood ran warm with a strange excitement.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Again there filled Philip the desire to be with Jean in the forest.  The husky’s wail told him that the half-breed had begun his journey.  Between this hour and to-morrow night he would be threading his way swiftly over the wilderness trails on his strange mission.  Philip envied him the action, the exhaustion that would follow.  He envied even the dogs running in the traces.  He was a living dynamo, overcharged, with every nerve in him drawn to the point that demanded the reaction of physical exertion.  He knew that he could not sleep.  The night would be one long and tedious wait for the dawn.  And Jean had told him not to sleep as long as Josephine was awake!

Was he to take that literally?  Did Jean mean that he was to watch her?  He wondered if she was in bed now.  At least the half-breed’s admonition offered him an excuse.  He would go to her room.  If there was a light he would knock, and ask her if she would join him in the piano-room.  He looked at his watch.  It was nearly midnight.  Probably she had retired.

He opened his door and entered the hall.  Quietly he went to the end room.  There was no light—­and he heard no sound.  He was standing close to it, concealed in the shadows, when his heart gave a sudden jump.  Advancing toward him down the hall was a figure clad in a flowing white night-robe.

At first he did not know whether it was Josephine or Miriam.  And then, as she came under one of the low-burning lamps, he saw that it was Miriam.  She had turned, and was looking back toward the room where she had left her husband.  Her beautiful hair was loose, and fell in lustrous masses to her hips.  She was listening.  And in that moment Philip heard a low, passionate sob.  She turned her face toward him again, and he could see it drawn with agony.  In the lamp-glow her hands were clasped at her partly bared breast.  She was barefoot, and made no sound as she advanced.  Philip drew himself back closer against the wall.  He was sure she had not seen him.  A moment later Miriam turned into the corridor that led into Adare’s big room.