‘I could have got him when he first entered,’ I said ruefully.

‘I know,’ she said in a graver tone.  ’Only of course you couldn’t . . .  Besides, Mr Blenkiron doesn’t want it—­yet.’

She put her hand on my arm.  ’Don’t worry about it.  It wasn’t written it should happen that way.  It would have been too easy.  We have a long road to travel yet before we clip the wings of the Wild Birds.’

‘Look,’ I cried.  ‘The fire from heaven!’

Red tongues of flame were shooting up from the out-buildings at the farther end, the place where I had first seen the woman.  Some agreed plan must have been acted on, and Ivery was destroying all traces of his infamous yellow powder.  Even now the concierge with her odds and ends of belongings would be slipping out to some refuge in the village.

In the still dry night the flames rose, for the place must have been made ready for a rapid burning.  As I hurried Mary round the moat I could see that part of the main building had caught fire.  The hamlet was awakened, and before we reached the corner of the highroad sleepy British soldiers were hurrying towards the scene, and the Town Major was mustering the fire brigade.  I knew that Ivery had laid his plans well, and that they hadn’t a chance—­that long before dawn the Chateau of Eaucourt Sainte-Anne would be a heap of ashes and that in a day or two the lawyers of the aged Marquise at Biarritz would be wrangling with the insurance company.

At the corner stood Amos beside two bicycles, solid as a graven image.  He recognized me with a gap-toothed grin.

‘It’s a cauld night, General, but the home fires keep burnin’.  I havena seen such a cheery lowe since Dickson’s mill at Gawly.’

We packed, bicycles and all, into my car with Amos wedged in the narrow seat beside Hamilton.  Recognizing a fellow countryman, he gave thanks for the lift in the broadest Doric.  ‘For,’ said he, ’I’m not what you would call a practised hand wi’ a velocipede, and my feet are dinnled wi’ standin’ in the snaw.’

As for me, the miles to Douvecourt passed as in a blissful moment of time.  I wrapped Mary in a fur rug, and after that we did not speak a word.  I had come suddenly into a great possession and was dazed with the joy of it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Mr Blenkiron Discourses on Love and War

Three days later I got my orders to report at Paris for special service.  They came none too soon, for I chafed at each hour’s delay.  Every thought in my head was directed to the game which we were playing against Ivery.  He was the big enemy, compared to whom the ordinary Boche in the trenches was innocent and friendly.  I had almost lost interest in my division, for I knew that for me the real battle-front was not in Picardy, and that my job was not so easy as holding a length of line.  Also I longed to be at the same work as Mary.