At every few steps, he paused to listen, fearful lest his absence had been detected and he were followed by some one from the Inn. Then he would start on again, peering eagerly into the darkness ahead for any sign of her whom he sought. At last he reached the end of the avenue. His heart was beating wildly, in a very terror that she might not come. Nothing—no catastrophe, no danger, no disgrace,—could be so terrible to him as that the woman he loved so recklessly and madly should not come. She must not fail! He looked at his watch; it was already three minutes past ten. If in five—then minutes she did not come, he would go to seek her—to the House on the Dunes, aye, if must be to The Southern Cross itself.
Suddenly a dark figure slipped out of the gloom, and Claire de la Fontaine was in his arms. For a moment she let him clasp her, let his lips again meet hers; then quickly she disengaged herself. "Are we safe?" she asked in a whisper. "Is it that we can talk here."
"We are perfectly safe," he answered. "Nothing can be heard from the Inn. No one is about."
"You escaped without notice? Are you certain that no one follows you?"
"Absolutely. I am sure. And you?"
"I?—Oh, no, no—. There is no one to question me. I have been at the House on the Dunes all the evening. Marie, my maid,—she thinks that I am gone to the schooner. Mon Dieu! cher ami, what terrors I have suffered for you. It had not seemed possible that Claire de la Fontaine would ride and walk two so long miles in a desolate country to meet a lover—It must be that we are gone mad."
"Madness then is the sweetest experience of life," said Dan, seizing her hand again and carrying it to his lips.
"Ah peut-etre, mon ami. But now there are many affairs to discuss. Tell me—the Marquis, he was released, as your friend has promised me he should be?"
"Of course, didn't you know it?"
"I know nothing. Why then is it he has not left the Inn?"