swer to my inquiring
glance, he came over to me and whispered:

"Don't you see? He," jerking his finger toward the Colonel, "wants us
to waste as much time as possible, while my lady slips through our
fingers and gets farther and farther on her road."

"Where is she?"

"Ah, where? No longer here, anyway."

The train by which we had come from Geneva was not now in the station.
It had gone on, quite unobserved by any of us during the fracas, and
it flashed upon me at once that the incident had been planned for this
very purpose of occupying our attention while she stole off.

"But, one moment, Ludovic, that train was going to Macon and Paris. My
lady was travelling the other way--this way. You came with her
yourself. Why should she run back again?"

"Ah! Why does a woman do anything, and particularly this one? Still
there was a reason, a good one. She must have caught sight of my lord,
and knew that she was caught."

"That's plausible enough, but I don't understand it. She started for
Italy; what turned her back when you followed her, and why did she
come this way again?"

"She only came because I'd tracked her to Amberieu, and thought to
give me the slip," said Tiler.

"May be. But it don't seem to fit. Anyway, we've got to find her once
more. It ought not to be difficult. She's not the sort to hide
herself easily, with all her belongings, the nurse and the baby and
all the rest. But hold on, my lord is speaking."

"Find out, one of you," he said briefly, "when the next train goes to
Aix. I mean to push this through to the bitter end. You will be
careful, sergeant, to bring your prisoner along with you."

"_Merci bien!_ I do not want you or any one else to teach me my duty,"
replied the gendarme, very stiffly. It was clear that his sympathies
were all with the other side.

"A prisoner, am I?" cried the Colonel, gaily. "Not much. But I shall
make no difficulties. I am willing enough to go with you. When is it
to be?"

"Nine fifty-one; due at Aix at 10.22," Tiler reported, and we
proceeded to pass the time, some twenty minutes, each in his own way.
Lord Blackadder paced the platform with feverish footsteps, his rage
and disappointment still burning fiercely within him. The Colonel
invited the two gendarmes to the _buvette_, and l'Echelle followed
him. I was a little doubtful of that slippery gentleman; although I
had bought him, as I thought, the night before, I never felt sure of
him. He had joined our p