"Have another glass?" asked the wood carver. "Or shall we go on?"
"Go on—where?"
"Oh, of course, you don't know my plan. I will tell you. You see, I must find Alice, I must try to save her from this folly, for her mother's sake. Well, I know how to find her."
He spoke so earnestly and straightforwardly that Coquenil began to think Groener had really been deceived by the Matthieu disguise. After all, why not? Tignol had been deceived by it.
"How will you find her?"
"I'll tell you as we drive along. We'll take a cab and—you won't leave me, M. Matthieu?" he said anxiously.
Coquenil tried to soften the grimness of his smile. "No, M. Groener, I won't leave you."
"Good! Now then!" He threw down some money for the drinks, then he hailed a passing carriage.
"Rue Tronchet, near the Place de la Madeleine," he directed, and as they rolled away, he added: "Stop at the nearest telegraph office."
The adventure was taking a new turn. Groener, evidently, had some definite plan which he hoped to carry out. Coquenil felt for cigarettes in his coat pocket and his hand touched the friendly barrel of a revolver. Then he glanced back and saw the big automobile, which had been waiting for hours, trailing discreetly behind with Tignol (no longer a priest) and two sturdy fellows, making four men with the chauffeur, all ready to rush up for attack or defense at the lift of his hand. There must be some miraculous interposition if this man beside him, this baby-faced wood carver, was to get away now as he did that night on the Champs Elysées.