"No, no, darling heart! He is unhurt. But I can tell you nothing more just now. Later ... later. But why did you return here?"
"I came with a message from my mother. She is in sore trouble, I fear. I found her, on her couch in the Blue Salon, with tears streaming down her face and sobs choking her."
"And she wants me ... now?"
"Yes. She told me to look for you, and bring you to her at once."
"Then go straightway back, dear, and tell her that I shall be with her immediately. Yes, go—go—at once."
But by the time Ynys had moved into the alley which led her to the château, and Alan had returned to the spot where he had left Judik, rapid changes had occurred.
The wheeled chair had gone. Alan could see it nearing the South Yews; with the Marquis Tristran in it, leaning backward and with head erect. At its side walked Raif Kermorvan. He seemed to be whispering to the Seigneur. The carriage had disappeared; with it Georges de Rohan, the soldier orderly, and, presumably, the dead man.
Alan stood hesitant, uncertain whether to go first to the Marquise, or to follow the man whom he regarded now with an aversion infinitely deeper than he had ever done hitherto; with whom, he felt, he never wished to speak again, for he was a murderer, if ever man was, and, from Alan's standpoint, a coward as well. Tristran de Kerival was the deadliest shot in all the country-side, and he must have known that, when he challenged his victim, he gave him his death sentence.
It did not occur to Alan that possibly the survivor was the man challenged. Instinctively he knew that this was not so.