The clock struck the three-quarters, and Lily put on her cloak and went to the door again. It was snowing heavily by this time, and the wind almost raging in the pass. Despite the rigours of the night, she determined to go a little way upon the road in the hope that she might meet Luton; and she set out bravely, afraid that the wrathful Louise might detect her and yet determined in her purpose. Two hundred yards from the chalet, a burst of light upon the hillside marked the spot where the brothers Benson were living, and by this she must go upon her way to Vermala. It chanced, however, that Jack Benson stood at the door of the shed when she approached, and it was natural to ask him how his brother did. Jack thought little of women, as a rule, and he dreaded this particular woman's influence with Benny; but he could not answer her uncivilly, and like the others, he was, metaphorically, at her feet before she had spoken twenty words to him.
"Is that you, Mrs. Kennaird; what a night, isn't it? Aren't you rather daring to be out?"
"Oh!" she said, "I had no idea there was such a wind blowing. Will you let me shelter a moment? I'm really quite out of breath. That's the shed where your brother keeps his aeroplane, is it not? He told me all about it, you know. I'm very much interested."
Jack muttered to himself that Benny was losing his wits, or he would never have talked about the machine to a woman; but a moment's reflection reminded him that the sex is rarely of a mechanical turn, and would hardly profit by the confidence. So he threw the door open wide, and the electric lamps blazing within cast a warm aureole upon the snow and upon Lily's pale face. Perhaps Jack understood his brother's infatuation then, if he could not condone it.
"You'll find us rather upside down," he said apologetically. "We're always like that when Benny's away—we haven't his idea of order. But we're pretty useful in our way, and the abbé's as good as any mechanic from Bleriot's. He's just turning up the planes, if you understand what that is, Mrs. Kennaird; sewing them up with steel wire, so to speak. I assure you, we'd have gone to pot without the abbé."
The little priest looked up and smiled pleasantly. He wore a white apron over his cassock, and sat with one of Benny's planes over his knee, repairing and relaying the canvas with the skill of a trained workman. Jack himself was enveloped in engineer's overalls, and had been working at a forge in the far corner; he, too, was liberally decorated with choice smuts, and had a very chart of carbon upon his cheeks.
"Do you say Mr. Benson is away?" Lily asked him. Jack responded as one who had a personal grievance.
"He was off before lunch. Wouldn't eat anything for some reason which he'll have forgotten by the time he comes back. I don't know where he is, I'm sure. He always goes away just when we want him most."
"But, surely, this is a dreadful night to be out; he should have returned by this time?"
The abbé nodded his head.