hen turned on her heels, ran up the stairs
with surprising agility, crossed a passage and entered her husband's
bedroom.

She uttered a cry and called:

"Marthe!... Marthe!..."

But the young woman, who had followed her, was already on her way to the
second floor, with Suzanne.

Philippe's room was at the back. She opened the door quickly and stood
on the threshold, speechless.

Philippe was not there; and the bed had not even been undone.

CHAPTER II

PHILIPPE TELLS A LIE

The three women met in the drawing-room. Mme. Morestal walked up and
down in dismay, hardly knowing what she was saying:

"Not in!... Philippe neither!... Victor, you must run ... but where
to?... Where is he to look?... Oh, it's really too terrible!..."

She suddenly stepped in front of Marthe and stammered:

"The ... the shots ... last night...."

Marthe, pale with anxiety, did not reply. She had had the same awful
thought from the first moment.

But Suzanne exclaimed:

"In any case, Marthe, you need not be alarmed. Philippe did not take the
road by the frontier."

"Are you sure?"

"We separated at the Carrefour du Grand-Chene. M. Morestal and papa went
on by themselves. Philippe came straight back."

"No, he can't have come straight back, or he would be here now," said
Marthe. "What can he have been doing all night? He has not even set
foot in his room!"

But Mme. Morestal was terrified by what Suzanne had said. She could now
no longer doubt that her husband had taken the frontier-road; and the
shots had come from the frontier!

"Yes, that's true," said Suzanne, "but it was only ten o'clock when we
started from Saint-Elophe and the shots which you heard were fired at
one or two o'clock in the morning.... You said so yourself."

"How can I tell?" cried the old lady, who was beginning to lose her head
entirely. "It may have been much earlier."

"But your father must know," said Marthe to Suzanne. "Did he tell you
nothing?"

"I have not seen my father this morning," said Suzanne. "He was not
awake...."

She had not time to finish her sentence before an idea burst in upon
her, an idea so natural that the two other women were struck by it also
and none of them dared put it into words.

Suzanne flew to the door, but Marthe held her back. Why not telephone to
Saint-Elophe, to the special commissary's house?

A minute later, M. Jorance's servant replied that she had just noticed
that her master was not in. His be