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Updated: June 3, 2025
The young girl in whose lap rested the head of Monsieur d'Aubrac sat back and watched Duchemin with curious, grave eyes in which traces of moisture glimmered. "Had the animal at my mercy, I thought," d'Aubrac apologised, "when suddenly he drew that knife, stuck me and broke away." "I understand," Duchemin replied. "But don't talk. You'll want all your strength, my friend."
"I had understood that the monsieur in question had long since retired." "Only for the duration of the war, monsieur, I am afraid." "It is true, according to all reports," the Comte de Lorgnes said: "Monsieur Lanyard that was the name, was it not?" "If memory serves, monsieur le comte," Duchemin agreed. "Yes." The count screwed his chubby features into a laughable mask of gravity.
Simultaneously the brakes were set, the dark bulk began to slide with locked wheels to a stop, and a voice cried: "Quickly, monsieur, quickly!" the voice of Eve de Montalais. In two bounds Duchemin overtook the car and before it had come to a standstill leaped upon the running-board and grasped the side.
She extended a hand on whose palm rested a small and slender white cylinder, no longer and little thicker than the toy pencil that dangles from a dance-card: a tight roll of plain white paper enclosed in a wrapping of transparent oiled silk, gummed fast down its length and, at either end, sealed with miniature blobs of black wax. "Will you do this for me, Monsieur Duchemin?
Yes: it is amusing, but quite true; though it would need a deal of contriving, something little short of a revolution to bring it about, to precisely such a future as that did Duchemin most seriously propose to dedicate himself. But always, they say, it is God who disposes.... Nor would he heed the dubious head shaken by his host of Meyrueis, who earnestly advised a guide.
"But Nant is not far from the Château de Montalais; and at La Roque-Sainte-Marguerite our automobile is waiting, less than two miles below. The chauffeur advised against bringing over the road from La Roque to Montpellier; it is too rough and very steep." "Oh!" said Duchemin, as one who catches a glimmering of light. "Pardon, monsieur?"
Tell me: Is it the custom in your country ?" "Oh, Jules!" said Phinuit, and laughed. "Jules is my younger brother. When he was demobilised his job was gone, back home, and I wished him on Mr. Monk as a chauffeur. We're always kidding each other like that." Now what could be more reasonable? Duchemin wondered, and concluded that, if anything, it would be the truth.
In dusk of evening he stumbled down into the valley again and struck the river road about midway between the Château de Montalais and Nant. At this junction several dwellings clustered, in that fading light dark masses on either side of the road. Duchemin noticed a few shadowy shapes loitering about, but was too far gone in fatigue and thirst to pay them any heed.
Repenting her impulsiveness, after leaving Lanyard with the captain, from whom she had doubtless learned the truth about "Monsieur Duchemin," she might well have gone directly to Lanyard's stateroom and hit upon the morphia phial as the likeliest hiding place without delay, thanks to prior acquaintance with the proportions of the paper cylinder.
The Causses, he declared, were treacherous; men sometimes lost their way upon those lofty plains and were never heard of more. Duchemin didn't in the least mind getting lost, that is to say failing to make his final objective; at worst he could depend upon a good memory and an unfailing sense of direction to lead him back the way he had come.
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