"It is strange!" exclaimed the other. "And no one suspected?"
"I suspect," answered Cary sternly, "but the world in general does not, or suspects wrongly. You were not at the inquest which was held?"
The dancing master shook his head. "In your sorrow, sir, such matters were, naturally, not brought to your notice. I fell ill, in the first days of September, at Red Fields, of a cold upon the lungs. I gave up my art and lay at death's door. My head was light; I heard and I thought of nothing but the faces and the voices around about Aire where I was young. I recovered, and, in the stage, I went to Richmond. To ask who is it you suspect would be a question indiscreet—"
Cary sat with his eyes upon the dark azure above the treetops. "Not yet," he said, in a brooding voice; "I have him not yet. Did you, Mr. Pincornet, have any scruple when you took vengeance, near Mauléon?"
"None, sir! I served justice. Soldiers are not levied to murder at once their faith and their officers. No more scruple than is yours in hunting down the wild beast that killed your brother! You have my wishes there for a good hunting!"
The Ancien Régime put up his snuffbox and brushed the fallen grains from his old, old red brocade. "What a night for music and for love! The road down yonder—it is like the silver ribbon they wear—they wore—at court!"
"The road—the road!" exclaimed Cary. "I travel it in my sleep. It haunts me as I haunt it. I know all its long stretches, all its turns—" He sighed, and moved so as to face the whitened ribbon.
"You ride," said the dancing master; "but, for my own convenience, I go afoot, and it is probable that I know it best."
They sat gazing down past garden and hillside to the still highway. "I have not walked upon it, however," continued Mr. Pincornet reflectively, "since September. I then went afoot from Clover Hill to Red Fields, where I was taken ill. It was the seventh of September."
"The seventh of September!"