But the real interest arose suddenly as a squall arises with the extraordinary affair that occurred about five days after.  There was about a third of a mile beyond the village of Haroc a large but lonely hotel upon the London or Paris model, but commonly almost entirely empty.  Among the accidental group of guests who had come to it at this season was a man whose nationality no one could fix and who bore the non-committal name of Count Gregory.  He treated everybody with complete civility and almost in complete silence.  On the few occasions when he spoke, he spoke either French, English, or once (to the priest) Latin; and the general opinion was that he spoke them all wrong.  He was a large, lean man, with the stoop of an aged eagle, and even the eagle’s nose to complete it; he had old-fashioned military whiskers and moustache dyed with a garish and highly incredible yellow.  He had the dress of a showy gentleman and the manners of a decayed gentleman; he seemed (as with a sort of simplicity) to be trying to be a dandy when he was too old even to know that he was old.  Ye he was decidedly a handsome figure with his curled yellow hair and lean fastidious face; and he wore a peculiar frock-coat of bright turquoise blue, with an unknown order pinned to it, and he carried a huge and heavy cane.  Despite his silence and his dandified dress and whiskers, the island might never have heard of him but for the extraordinary event of which I have spoken, which fell about in the following way: 

In such casual atmospheres only the enthusiastic go to Benediction; and as the warm blue twilight closed over the little candle-lit church and village, the line of worshippers who went home from the former to the latter thinned out until it broke.  On one such evening at least no one was in church except the quiet, unconquerable Madeleine, four old women, one fisherman, and, of course, the irrepressible M. Camille Bert.  The others seemed to melt away afterwards into the peacock colours of the dim green grass and the dark blue sky.  Even Durand was invisible instead of being merely reverentially remote; and Madeleine set forth through the patch of black forest alone.  She was not in the least afraid of loneliness, because she was not afraid of devils.  I think they were afraid of her.

In a clearing of the wood, however, which was lit up with a last patch of the perishing sunlight, there advanced upon her suddenly one who was more startling than a devil.  The incomprehensible Count Gregory, with his yellow hair like flame and his face like the white ashes of the flame, was advancing bareheaded towards her, flinging out his arms and his long fingers with a frantic gesture.

“We are alone here,” he cried, “and you would be at my mercy, only that I am at yours.”

Then his frantic hands fell by his sides and he looked up under his brows with an expression that went well with his hard breathing.  Madeleine Durand had come to a halt at first in childish wonder, and now, with more than masculine self-control, “I fancy I know your face, sir,” she said, as if to gain time.