"Tiens!" cried the woman who looked up from the hearth when Yvonne entered. "Why isn't Madeleine with you? She went to Mère Pitou's half an hour ago."
"We've been to Moëlan," faltered Yvonne. "I must have missed her. Au revoir, Madame Brissac."
"Oh, I cannot bear it!" cried Yvonne in an agony of shame when she was alone again in the darkness. "My mother! And now my friend! What shall I do? Is there none to help? How can I tell my father—or Lorry? Dear, lion-hearted Lorry! Surely I can trust him, and he will take that man in his strong hands and crush him!"
CHAPTER IX
SHOWING HOW HARVEY RAYMOND BEGAN THE ATTACK
Raymond had too many irons in the fire that day to permit of the relaxation of mental and bodily energies that his condition demanded.
It was essential to the success of a scheme now taking definite shape in his mind that he should seem to avoid Rupert Fosdyke's prying while maintaining a close surveillance on his movements. Thus, owing to the chance that he occupied a bedroom overlooking the Place, he knew when Fosdyke went out after changing the garments of ceremony worn that morning, and guessed quite accurately that an afternoon stroll would lead the younger man past Madeleine's cottage. He watched for the arrival of the solicitor's clerk from London, and witnessed Fosdyke's return soon after five o'clock. Then, realizing that the first of many formalities with regard to Carmac's will was in progress, he quitted his post, meaning to sit on the terrace until Fosdyke reappeared.
The weather, however, had turned cold, and he found an overcoat necessary. With the help of a servant he buttoned the coat in such wise that the empty right sleeve dangled as though he had lost a limb. As a consequence he was not instantly recognizable. Harry Jackson, seated patiently at the window behind the sycamores, failed to make out the identity of that small, ungainly figure until it had paced to and fro several times across the top of the small square.
A remarkable feature of a day rich in events fated to exercise a malefic influence on the lives of four people was provided by the fact that two men so opposite in characteristics as Harvey Raymond and Harry Jackson should have spent some hours in staring out from their respective apartments at the normal if picturesque panorama presented by the main thoroughfare of the village. Each was unaware of the other's vigil, each wholly unconscious of the part he was destined to play in a drama of love and death.
The secretary, of course, was nursing a project that could hardly fail to raise his fortunes to a height hitherto undreamed of; whereas the cheery-hearted steward, though his puzzled thoughts at times would have bothered Raymond far more than an occasional twinge of a broken arm did he but know their nature, was actually concerned about little else than his own future and the welfare of a mother dependent on his earnings. Still, it was odd that the sight of Raymond seldom failed to bring a perplexed frown to Jackson's face. The two had never met until the Stella sailed from Southampton Water. They had not exchanged a word beyond the commonplaces of existence on board a yacht. Yet Jackson disliked Raymond, and, if minds were mirrors, the quasi-gentleman would have seen in the civil-spoken steward a mortal enemy; though none would be more surprised by the fact than the sturdy little Cockney himself.
Jackson felt rather lonely just then. Popple was occupied with an English-speaking representative of the Brest marine salvors, from whom he had hired a diver and a tug. Tollemache had vanished, being miles away at Moëlan with Yvonne and her father, and the changeful show beneath had lost some of its novelty in the eyes of the lively Londoner. He resented enforced inactivity. He wanted to be up and doing, bustling about like Popple; but that wretched ankle of his anchored him securely in bed or easy chair.