"Perhaps he himself may have pointed out another," I suggested. "Let us go to Madame de Guéran; she must have finished her reading by this time, and will let us see what her husband says."
Without further delay we bent our steps towards the hut occupied by
Madame de Guéran in the middle of the encampment.
CHAPTER XV.
Miss Poles was waiting for us.
"The Baroness," said she, "will receive you whenever you wish, but she begs you first of all to glance over these papers. She has just read them, and says that they are addressed to you rather than to her, since M. de Guéran has no idea that she is in Africa."
I took the papers, and drew de Morin into my tent.
"I feared," said I, "that Madame de Guéran would refuse to receive us to-day, and I was astonished at her message."
"You were wrong to fear anything of the kind. The Baroness knows very well that though, as Frenchmen, we may rejoice over the actual and officially-reported resurrection of M. de Guéran, we are rather sorry for it from another point of view. She knows also that we shall bring with us somewhat gloomy countenances, and, with her usual bravery, she wishes to confront us as soon as possible, and arm herself against our despair. Moreover, we must not forget that ever since we left Khartoum, her position towards us has been as open and clearly-defined as possible; she has not concealed from us her conviction that she should find her husband again, that she did not believe herself to be a widow, and that, instead of having to kneel at the tomb of a dead man, she hoped soon to throw herself into the arms of a living one. She begged us not to follow her; it was our idea not to leave her; so that it is not her fault if we have cherished the hope that M. de Guéran might be dead and buried."
"You are a walking hand-book of logic," I replied, determined not to be behind de Morin in the matter of forced spirits. "Let us study the revelations of the ci-devant corpse."
These revelations were written in pencil on some sheets of paper torn out of the self-same note book which had already on several occasions been used by the Baron in his communications.