Neither man noticed how the time was slipping by until Mère Pitou summoned them to supper. Yvonne had not arrived; so they assumed that she had remained with Mrs. Carmac. About ten o'clock Ingersoll—probably in a state of subdued nervousness as to the outcome of the projected disclosure—asked Tollemache to convey a message to Yvonne that she was wanted at home.
Lorry obeyed cheerfully. He believed he had blundered on a means of discomfiting the rascally secretary, and, that laudable object once attained, the path was clear for his own love making. Though his aims and hopes differed from Harvey Raymond's as the open sea from a slime-covered morass, he too made the mistake of imagining that money could level all obstacles; which, if regarded as an infallible maxim, is misleading alike to the just and the unjust.
Usually, when returning to the hotel from the cottage, he took the short cut by the footbridge on which Yvonne had encountered Madeleine and Fosdyke. He was aware, however, that the girl habitually used the slightly longer but more open highway. So he turned into the Concarneau road, and was approaching the main bridge (the famous old pont that gives the village its name) when he saw two people sauntering slowly toward the harbor, and apparently engaged in close converse. They were some distance away, and partly hidden in the deep shadow of a fifteenth century mill with curious carvings beneath the roof of a lion and a man; but he could not be mistaken as to Yvonne and Raymond, for no other girl in Pont Aven carried herself with Yvonne's grace, and the misshapen little secretary was in a class apart.
Evidently Raymond had offered his escort to Yvonne, and they were extending a somewhat late promenade to enable the former to convey such news as he had to give of the journey to Quimperlé. Possibly he had received an answer from that mysterious "friend" Duquesne. Nevertheless Tollemache was aware of a sudden lessening of his exaltation. It was as though when overheated by exertion he had entered a cold and clammy vault. He could give no valid reason why he should not quicken his pace and overtake Yvonne with her father's message. Yet he hung back, conscious of a sense of intrusion, yet furious with himself on account of this inexplicable hesitancy.
Finally he compromised. Yvonne would surely not take a prolonged stroll after ten o'clock at night. He would walk a little way up the old Concarneau road (so called because, after the fashion of ancient tracks, it climbs a steep hill boldly, while its modern supplanter follows a longer and easier sweep) and keep in the gloom of the ancient houses clustered there until he saw her making for the cottage. With growing impatience, and a prey to not a little misgiving, he waited fully half an hour.
At last she appeared, walking swiftly and alone. And now his anxiety yielded to astonishment. Coming quietly down the hill, and crossing the Place au Beurre, he was just in time to see her vanish into the obscurity of the Rue Mathias. At any rate, then, she was heading for Mère Pitou's. Glancing toward the harbor, he fancied he could make out Raymond at the end of the short, narrow street.
He did not think it necessary to lurk in the background until Raymond passed, but went to the hotel and stood on the terrace under the sycamores, but well in view of anyone approaching the annex.
Soon Raymond came, picking his steps with careful slowness, and keeping to the well lighted center of the square. His chin was sunk in the upturned collar of an overcoat, and he had the aspect of one lost in thought. Yet he seemed to know of Tollemache's presence, and raised his eyes in a steady stare when the two were within a few yards of each other.
He did not speak, but his pallid face creased into a malevolent grin. Whether or not this was intended as a polite recognition, Tollemache neither knew nor cared. He returned Raymond's stare with the impassivity of a Red Indian, and, though puzzled and distressed, resolved to look in on Harry Jackson before retiring for the night.