"And," Andrew went on, "there is one other thing. I owe this man an opportunity of crossing swords with me again--villain though he is--and he shall have it."
"Yet he seeks not that reparation. Has escaped, fled. What will you do? Follow him across the world--perhaps never to find him even then?"
"No. Again listen. I do not believe I shall have far to go. Valentin, it is borne in on me that De Bois-Vallée is at no very great distance from here now."
"What!"
"I believe that he is secreted somewhere in that house of his at this moment."
"At Bois-le-Vaux?"
"Yes. At Bois-le-Vaux."
"It is impossible."
"Nay--it is most probable. Let me repeat to you what I have said happened at the moment when he escaped from my grasp. The garret was full of smoke--dense, black smoke--none could see an inch beyond themselves. Then--in an instant, he was gone. Yet--where? Not backwards to the corridor; that was impossible. There, even if he had regained it, he could not have lived ten minutes--in the garret itself, we should have been suffocated in the same space of time had I not been able to get the trap open--moreover, he could not have passed behind us. We were all together--Marion's form extended along the floor. That was impossible."
"And the roof? Might there be no way down from that?"