With a rattling breath his head dropped upon Philip’s arm.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Scarcely had Jean uttered the few words that preceded his lapse into unconsciousness than Philip heard the laughing voice of Adare at the farther end of the hall.  Heavy footsteps followed the voice.  Impulse rather than reason urged him into action.  He lowered Jean to the floor, sprang to the partly open door, closed it and softly locked it.  He was not a moment too soon.  A few steps more and Adare was beating on the panel with his fist.

“What, ho!” he cried in his booming voice.  “Josephine wants to know if you have forgotten her?” Adare’s hand was on the latch.

“I am—­undressed,” explained Philip desperately.  “Offer a thousand apologies for me, Mon Pere.  I will finish my bath in a hurry!”

He dropped on his knees beside Jean as the master of Adare moved away from the door.  A brief examination showed him where Croisset was hurt.  The half-breed had received a scalp wound from which the blood had flowed down over his face and breast.  He breathed easier when he discovered nothing beyond this.  In a few minutes he had him partially stripped and on his bed.  Jean opened his eyes as he bathed the blood from his face.  He made an effort to rise, but Philip held him back.

“Not yet, Jean,” he said.

Jean’s glance shifted in a look of alarm toward the door.

“I must, M’sieur,” he insisted.  “It was the last few hundred yards that made me dizzy.  I am better now.  And there is no time to lose.  I must get into my room—­into other clothes!”

“We will not be interrupted,” Philip assured him.  “Is this your only hurt, Jean?”

“That alone, M’sieur.  It was not bad until an hour ago.  Then it broke out afresh, and made me so dizzy that with my last breath I stumbled into your room.  The saints be praised that I managed to reach you!”

Philip left him, to return in a moment with a flask.  Jean had pulled himself to a sitting posture on the side of the bed.

“Here’s a drop of whisky, Jean.  It will stir up your blood.”

“Mon Dieu, it has been stirred up enough this night, tanike,” smiled Jean feebly.  “But it may give me voice, M’sieur.  Will you get me fresh clothes?  They are in my room—­which is next to this on the right.  I must be prepared for Josephine or Le M’sieur before I talk.”

Philip went to the door and opened it cautiously.  He could hear voices coming from the room through which he had first entered Adare House.  The hall was clear.  He slipped out and moved swiftly to Jean’s room.  Five minutes later he reentered his own room with an armful of Jean’s clothes.  Already Croisset was something like himself.  He quickly put on the garments Philip gave him, brushed the tangles from his hair, and called upon Philip to examine him to make sure he had left no spot of blood on his face or neck.