madam."

The doctor lifted his eyebrows with a comical look of distress. "Alas,
alas, Mrs. Fairbank!" he said. "Nothing has happened! The days of romance
are over!"

"It is not two o'clock yet," my mistress answered, a little irritably.

The smell of the stables was strong on the morning air. She put her
handkerchief to her nose and led the way out of the yard by the north
entrance--the entrance communicating with the gardens and the house. I was
ordered to follow her, along with the doctor. Once out of the smell of the
stables she began to question me again. She was unwilling to believe that
nothing had occurred in her absence. I invented the best answers I could
think of on the spur of the moment; and the doctor stood by laughing. So
the minutes passed till the clock struck two. Upon that, Mrs. Fairbank
announced her intention of personally visiting the Englishman in his room.
To my great relief, the doctor interfered to stop her from doing this.

"You have heard that Francis is just falling asleep," he said. "If you
enter his room you may disturb him. It is essential to the success of my
experiment that he should have a good night's rest, and that he should own
it himself, before I tell him the truth. I must request, madam, that you
will not disturb the man. Rigobert will ring the alarm bell if anything
happens."

My mistress was unwilling to yield. For the next five minutes, at least,
there was a warm discussion between the two. In the end Mrs. Fairbank was
obliged to give way--for the time. "In half an hour," she said, "Francis
will either be sound asleep, or awake again. In half an hour I shall come
back." She took the doctor's arm. They returned together to the house.

Left by myself, with half an hour before me, I resolved to take the
Englishwoman back to the village--then, returning to the stables, to
remove the gag and the bindings from Francis, and to let him screech to
his heart's content. What would his alarming the whole establishment
matter to _me_ after I had got rid of the compromising presence of my
guest?

Returning to the yard I heard a sound like the creaking of an open door on
its hinges. The gate of the north entrance I had just closed with my own
hand. I went round to the west entrance, at the back of the stables. It
opened on a field crossed by two footpaths in Mr. Fairbank's grounds. The
nearest footpath led to the village. The other led to the highroad and the
river.

Arriving at the