"I cannot help it," Dan stammered. "You bewitch me." He bent lower to kiss her cheek, when he suddenly thrilled to the realization that his lips had met hers.
A moment later Madame de la Fontaine was gone and Captain Bonhomme had reappeared in the doorway.
CHAPTER XIV
IN THE FOG
Tom Pembroke was as good as his word. He returned to the little room, in which he had confined the Marquis, within an hour after he had left him. It was then nearly supper-time and dusk was fast settling upon the gloomy countryside. An unwonted calm had fallen upon land and sea after the sharp blow of the previous night, but the sky was still gray and there was promise of more rain, if not of wind.
To Tom's indignation and alarm, though scarcely to his surprise, there had been no sign or word from Dan or Nancy. Shortly after he had left the Marquis, he saw, by aid of the field-glass, Madame de la Fontaine, attended by two seamen, leave the schooner and return to the House on the Dunes. He smiled a little as he thought of the account the lively young maid-servant would give of his recent visit. But withal, he felt very much as if he were playing a game of blind man's buff and that he was "it." He was impatient for his interview with the Marquis, though he was but little hopeful that an hour's confinement would have been sufficient to bring the old gentleman to terms. Nor was he to be surprised.
He found Monsieur de Boisdhyver huddled in a great arm chair near the fire that that been kindled on the hearth of his prison. The Marquis glanced up, as Tom entered, but dropped his eyes at once and offered him no greeting. Tom placed his candle on the table and, drawing up a chair, seated himself between the Marquis and the door.
"Well, sir," he said at last, "as I promised you, I have returned within an hour. Have you anything to say to me?"
"Have I anything to say to you!" exclaimed the Marquis. "For why, monsieur? If I venture to express my astonishment and indignation at the way I am treated, you subject me to a barbarity that could be matched no where else in the civilized world than in this extraordinary country. My life is menaced with firearms. My protests are sneered at. I have left but one inference—you have gone mad."