As they drew near to La Haie d’Etigues the path ran between high banks covered with bushes between which they marched with growing carefulness.
The wall rose in front of them. A few more steps, and the lodge, in which Ralph had taken up his abode, came into view. Josephine halted them with a gesture.
“Wait for me,” she said.
“Shall I come with you?” Leonard asked.
“No. I will come back for you and we will go into the park together through the gate which is on the other side of it, on our left.”
She went forward alone, therefore, setting down her feet so carefully that no stone rolled under her sole and no leaf rustled at the contact of her skirt. She came to the window of the keeper’s lodge.
She took hold of the shutters very gently. The fastenings, with which Dominique had tampered, did not hold them together. She opened them till a little light came through the opening. Then she glued her eye to it and looked into a room, on the further side of which was a recess with a bed in it.
Ralph was in the bed. A lamp, with a crystal globe and a cardboard shade on the top of it, showed clearly in the circle of its light his face, his shoulders, the book he was reading, and his clothes heaped up on the chair beside the bed. He looked young indeed, with something of the air of a boy who is giving all his attention to a task, but at the same time struggling against sleep. Several times his head dropped forward. He awoke, forced himself to read, and again dozed off.
At length he shut his book and put out the lamp.
Having seen what she wanted to see, Josephine left her post and returned to her confederates. She had already given her instructions, but she took the precaution of repeating them.