But mademoiselle?
Fanchette?
Simon?
Where were they?
No one was to be seen, Tormented by doubts, I lifted up my voice and called on them in turn; first on mademoiselle, then on Simon Fleix.

In vain; I got no answer.

High up above me I saw, as I stood back a little, lights moving in the house I had left; and the suspicion that, after all, the enemy had foiled me grew upon me.

Somehow they had decoyed mademoiselle to another part of the house, and then the old woman had misled me! I turned fiercely to the door, which I had left ajar, resolved to re-enter by the way I had come, and have an explanation whether or no.
To my surprise--for I had not moved six paces from the door nor heard the slightest sound--I found it not; only closed but bolted--bolted both at top and bottom, as I discovered on trying it.
I fell on that to kicking it furiously, desperately; partly in a tempest of rage and chagrin, partly in the hope that I might frighten the old woman, if it was she who had closed it, into opening it again.

In vain, of course; and presently I saw this and desisted, and, still in a whirl of haste and excitement, set off running towards the place where I had left Simon Fleix and the horses.