"In his bed, M'sieu. He overwalked this morning and knows nothing of the storm, and after a petit verre of this good cognac he has gone to sleep. It is good for the brain—this cognac; will not M'sieu join the others?"
"No, thank you," he said, smiling, "You know I never touch these things. But I was thinking of going out to see the night. Surely the rain is almost over! Do I go this way?"
"The other door, if you please, M'sieu."
Poussette's anxiety as he noted Ringfield's departure was ludicrous. He overturned bottles, knocked down a chair, while he cast frightened glances at the priest sitting reading his breviary austerely under the lamp. How could he escape? Ah—the horses—they had not been properly attended to! The next moment he was off, out of the kitchen and hastily rummaging in the large and dreary stables for a lantern. A whole row of these usually hung from the ceiling of a small outhouse close at hand, and Ringfield had already taken one, lighted it, and was a quarter of a mile along the road; Poussette, fearing this, made such insane haste, "raw haste, half-sister to Delay," that the blanketing of the horse and the other preliminaries took more time than usual, and he had hardly driven out of the gate when Father Rielle, who had changed his mind, also left the kitchen from where his sharp ears had caught these various sounds, and searching for a third lantern, found one, lighted it, and set off on foot behind Poussette in the buggy.
Thus—a little procession of three men and three lanterns was progressing along the slippery, lonely road towards the barn where Miss Clairville was awaiting rescue, the first of whom to arrive was Ringfield. Striding to the half-open door he boldly called her name, and shoving the lantern inside perceived her to be entirely alone.
"Oh—it is you then! I am so glad—it seems hours since you went away. I have not been exactly frightened, for I know these woods and there is nothing alive in them, but the position of this barn—so remote, so down by itself in the little hollow—if anything did attack me, my voice would never be heard."
"But you were not alone when I left you! You may not be alone now!"
"How did you find that out?" her face changed; she had not calculated on his having seen Crabbe.
"I think I knew all the time; your restlessness, your anxiety to get me away, your pushing me down on that box and changing the subject—why, when I saw him come out, and—and wind his arm around your waist, then I knew you had been lying to me! How could you do it!" He waved the lantern towards the loft but could see nothing there.
"He is gone, gone," said she earnestly; "he has gone to the village to get some rig or other and come back with it for me, but of course I would rather go with you."