until he can locate the fault."

"The work of a minute."

"It will take him five days at least."

Then Cynthia did flash an amused glance at him, but he was watching a
small steamer puffing against the tide, and his face was adamant.

"Go on," she cried quizzically. "What's the matter with the Count's
cylinders?"

"He professed to believe that I had stolen somebody's car, and
graciously undertook to shield me if I would consent to run away at
once, leaving you and Mrs. Devar to finish your tour in the Du
Vallon."

"And you refused?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"Very little; he agreed."

"But he is not the sort of person who turns the other cheek to the
smiter."

"I didn't smite him," Medenham blurted out.

Cynthia fastened on to the hesitating denial with the hawklike pounce
of some barrister famous for merciless cross-examination of a hostile
witness.

"Did you offer to?" she asked.

"We dealt with possible eventualities," he said weakly.

"I knew it.... There was such a funny look in your eyes when I first
saw you...."

"Funny is the right word. The crisis _was_ rather humorous."

"Poor man, he only wished to be civil, perhaps--I mean, that is, in
lending his car; and he may really have thought you--you were not a
chauffeur--like Simmonds, or Smith, for example. You wouldn't have hit
him, of course?"

"I sincerely hope not."

She caught her breath and peered at him again, and there was a light
in her eyes that would have infuriated Marigny had he seen it. It was
well, too, that Medenham's head was averted, since he simply dared not
meet her frankly inquisitive gaze.

"You know that such a thing would be horrid for me--for all of us,"
she persisted.

"Yes," he said, "I feel that very keenly. Thank goodness, the
Frenchman felt it also."

Cynthia thought fit to skip to the third item in her list.

"Now as to Captain Devar?" she cried. "His mother is dreadfully
annoyed. She hates dull evenings, and the four of us were to play
bridge to-night at Hereford. Why was he sent away?"

"Sent away?" echoed Medenham in mock amazement.

"Oh, come, you knew him quite well. You said so in London. I am not
exactly the silly young thing I look, Mr. Fitzroy, and Count Marigny's
coincidences are a trifle far-fetched. Both he and Captain Devar fully
understood what they were doing when they arranged to meet in Bristol,
and somebody must have fired a very big gun quite close to the fat
little man that h