“Is he at the Maire’s?” demanded Léon.
She thought that was not unlikely.
“Where is the Maire’s house?” he asked.
And she gave him some rather vague information on that point.
“Stay you here, Elvira,” said Léon, “lest I should miss him by the way. If, when I return, I find you here no longer, I shall follow at once to the Black Head.”
And he set out to find the Maire’s. It took him some ten minutes wandering among blind lanes, and when he arrived it was already half-an-hour past midnight. A long white garden wall overhung by some thick chestnuts, a door with a letter-box, and an iron bell-pull, that was all that could be seen of the Maire’s domicile. Léon took the bell-pull in both hands, and danced furiously upon the side-walk. The bell itself was just upon the other side of the wall, it responded to his activity, and scattered an alarming clangour far and wide into the night.
A window was thrown open in a house across the street, and a voice inquired the cause of this untimely uproar.
“I wish the Maire,” said Léon.
“He has been in bed this hour,” returned the voice.
“He must get up again,” retorted Léon, and he was for tackling the bell-pull once more.