I had finished dressing, next morning, and was strapping my things together for the day’s campaign, when I heard a shuffling step upon the porch, and the door opened gently, without any previous ceremony of knocking.  To my angle of vision what at first appeared to have opened it was a tray of coffee, rolls, eggs, and a packet of sandwiches, but, after hesitating somewhat, this apparition advanced farther into the room, disclosing a pair of supporting hands, followed in due time by the whole person of a nervously smiling and visibly apprehensive Amedee.  He closed the door behind him by the simple action of backing against it, took the cloth from his arm, and with a single gesture spread it neatly upon a small table, then, turning to me, laid the forefinger of his right hand warningly upon his lips and bowed me a deferential invitation to occupy the chair beside the table.

“Well,” I said, glaring at him, “what ails you?”

“I thought monsieur might prefer his breakfast indoors, this morning,” he returned in a low voice.

“Why should I?”

The miserable old man said something I did not understand—­an incoherent syllable or two—­suddenly covered his mouth with both hands, and turned away.  I heard a catch in his throat; suffocated sounds issued from his bosom; however, it was nothing more than a momentary seizure, and, recovering command of himself by a powerful effort, he faced me with hypocritical servility.

“Why do you laugh?” I asked indignantly.

“But I did not laugh,” he replied in a husky whisper.  “Not at all.”

“You did,” I asserted, raising my voice.  “It almost killed you!”

“Monsieur,” he begged hoarsely, “Hush!”

“What is the matter?” I demanded loudly.  “What do you mean by these abominable croakings?  Speak out!”

“Monsieur—­” he gesticulated in a panic, toward the courtyard.  “Mademoiselle Ward is out there.”

“What!” But I did not shout the word.

“There is always a little window in the rear wall,” he breathed in my ear as I dropped into the chair by the table.  “She would not see you if—­”

I interrupted with all the French rough-and-ready expressions of dislike at my command, daring to hope that they might give him some shadowy, far-away idea of what I thought of both himself and his suggestions, and, notwithstanding the difficulty of expressing strong feeling in whispers, it seemed to me that, in a measure, I succeeded.  “I am not in the habit of crawling out of ventilators,” I added, subduing a tendency to vehemence.  “And probably Mademoiselle Ward has only come to talk with Madame Brossard.”

“I fear some of those people may have told her you were here,” he ventured insinuatingly.

“What people?” I asked, drinking my coffee calmly, yet, it must be confessed, without quite the deliberation I could have wished.

“Those who stopped yesterday evening on the way to the chateau.  They might have recognised—­”