Mr. Percy allowed an oath to escape him, and we heard him muttering to himself.  Then his foot-steps sounded behind us.

“He’s coming!” Miss Elliott whispered, with nervous exultation, looking over her shoulder.  “He’s going to follow.”

“He was sure to,” said I.

We trudged briskly on, followed at some fifty paces by the perturbed watchman.  Presently I heard my companion utter a sigh so profound that it was a whispered moan.

“What is it?” I murmured.

“Oh, it’s the thought of Quesnay and to-morrow; facing them with this!” she quavered.  “Louise has written a letter for me to give them, but I’ll have to tell them—­”

“Not alone,” I whispered.  “I’ll be there when you come down from your room in the morning.”

We were embarked upon a singular adventure, not unattended by a certain danger; we were tingling with a hundred apprehensions, occupied with the vital necessity of drawing the little spy after us—­and that was a strange moment for a man (and an elderly painter-man of no mark, at that!) to hear himself called what I was called then, in a tremulous whisper close to my ear.  Of course she has denied it since; nevertheless, she said it—­twice, for I pretended not to hear her the first time.  I made no answer, for something in the word she called me, and in her seeming to mean it, made me choke up so that I could not even whisper; but I made up my mind that, after that if this girl saw Mr. Earl Percy on his way back to the inn before she wished him to go, it would be because he had killed me.

We were near the end of the lane when the neigh of a horse sounded sonorously from the road beyond.

Mr. Percy came running up swiftly and darted by us.

“Who’s that?” he called loudly.  “Who’s that in the cart yonder?”

I set my lantern on the ground close to the wall, and at the same moment a horse and cart drew up on the road at the end of the lane, showing against the starlight.  It was Pere Baudry’s best horse, a stout gray, that would easily enough make Trouville by daylight.  A woman’s figure and a man’s (the latter that of Pere Baudry himself) could be made out dimly on the seat of the cart.

“Who is it, I say?” shouted our excited friend.  “What kind of a game d’ye think y’re puttin’ up on me here?”

He set his hand on the side of the cart and sprang upon the hub of the wheel.  A glance at the occupants satisfied him.

“Mrs. Harman!” he yelled.  “Mrs. Harman!” He leaped down into the road.  “I knowed I was a fool to come away without wakin’ up Rameau.  But you haven’t beat us yet!”

He drove back into the lane, but just inside its entrance I met him.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Back to the pigeon-house in a hurry.  There’s devilment here, and I want Rameau.  Git out o’ my way!”

“You’re not going back,” said I.

“The hell I ain’t!” said Mr. Percy.  “I give ye two seconds t’ git out o’ my—­take yer hands offa me!”