Hamilton looked sharply at her.
"Why, certainly, Mademoiselle, certainly. Captain Farnsworth, you will escort the young lady."
"It is not necessary, Monsieur."
"Oh, yes, it is necessary, my dear young lady, very necessary; so let's not have further words. I'll try to entertain his honor, the Mayor, while you go and get the flag. I feel sure, Mademoiselle, that you'll return with it in a few minutes. But you must not go alone."
Alice set forth immediately, and Farnsworth, try as hard as he would, could never reach her side, so swift was her gait.
When they arrived at Father Beret's cabin, she turned and said with imperious severity:
"Don't you come in; you stay out here: I'll get it in a minute."
Farnsworth obeyed her command.
The door was wide open, but Father Beret was not inside; he had gone to see a sick child in the outskirts of the village. Alice looked about and hesitated. She knew the very puncheon that covered the flag; but she shrank from lifting it. There seemed nothing else to do, however; so, after some trouble with herself, she knelt upon the floor and turned the heavy slab over with a great thump. The flag did not appear. She peeped under the other puncheons. It was not there. The only thing visible was a little ball of paper fragments not larger than an egg.
Farnsworth heard her utter a low cry of surprise or dismay, and was on the point of going in when Father Beret, coming around the corner of the cabin, confronted him. The meeting was so sudden and unexpected that both men recoiled slightly, and then, with a mutual stare, saluted.