"Why can't you speak, man?" he said irritably. "Tell me where he is!"
"He has gone for his ride as usual," Victor said, speaking through pursed lips. "But he is very, very feeble to-day, Monsieur Pierre. We beg him not to go. But what would you? He is the master. We could not stop him. But he sit in his saddle—like this."
Victor's gesture descriptive of the bent, stricken figure that had ridden forth that morning was painfully true to life.
Piers sprang to his feet. "And he isn't back yet? Where on earth can he be? Which way did he go?"
Victor raised his shoulders. "He go down the drive—as always. Après cela, je ne sais pas."
"Confusion!" ejaculated Piers, and was gone.
He had returned by a short cut across the park, but now he tore down the long avenue, running like a trained athlete, head up and elbows in, possessed by the single purpose of reaching the lodge in as brief a time as possible. They would know at the lodge which way his grandfather had gone.
He found Marshall just turning in at his gate for the midday meal, and hailed him without ceremony.
The old man stopped and surveyed him with sour disapproval. The news of
Piers' abrupt disappearance on the previous night had spread.
No, Marshall could give him no news as to the master's whereabouts; he had been out all the morning.