Opposite meant the path in the wood.
I thought for a second or two; and then, tearing a sheet of paper from my note-book, I wrote:
"My Dear Uncle,
"Wait for me, when you come back, and don't leave the Lodge on any account. The danger is imminent.
"Victorien."
"Give this to M. Dorgeroux as soon as you see him, Valentine. I shall be back in half an hour."
The path ran in a straight line through dense thickets with tiny leaves burgeoning on the twigs of the bushes. It had rained heavily during the last few days, but a bright spring sun was drying the ground and I could distinguish no trace of footsteps. After walking three hundred yards, however, I met a small boy of the neighbourhood, whom I knew by sight, coming back to the village and pushing his bicycle, which had burst a tyre.
"You don't happen to have seen Mlle. Bérangère, have you?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, "with a gentleman."
"A gentleman wearing glasses?"