The green coolness, after the hot hilly road and the day’s persistent sun, was delicious. In five minutes Louis was asleep. Gilbert studied him for a little, flung at his ease on the moss; yes, he looked too serenely unconscious for treachery. And how had he dared to put the letters of that terrible word near those of Lucienne’s name . . . how had he dared to! But the fatigue which, in quickening his mental vision, had begun to bring a hundred pictures of her, finally overpowered its own work, and he fell fast asleep. He woke with a start, to find their late positions reversed, for Louis, wide awake, was sitting with his hands clasped round his knees regarding him with an air of amusement. “I wouldn’t wake you,” he observed, “but do you know how long we’ve slept? We have been here nearly two hours.” The long July day was dying rapidly now, was dead rather, and the two walked along under the trees agreeably enough, until they came to an unexpected and perplexing fork in the road. After due discussion they took the left-hand turning instead of keeping straight on, found after a time that they had strayed into a by-way, but persevered, and emerged, a little before nine o’clock, on another high-road. Along this, a few hundred yards to the right of them, shone the lights of a tiny village, which was obviously not Sillé. A passing rustic informed them that the hamlet was Pézé-le-Robert, and the road the highway from Beaumont-sur-Sarthe to Sillé-le-Guillaume. Louis sighed. “Couldn’t we at least have supper here?” he asked pathetically. “It’s heart-rending to think how long it is since we had our last meal.” The Marquis laughed. “Now that you remind me, I feel very hungry too,” he admitted. “Let us sup here, then, if we can; we might possibly get a bed as well.” As it happened, the first house to which they came, a tiny low-browed inn, displayed a faded but recognisable wheatsheaf with the legend, “A la Gerbe d’Or.” A slatternly-looking woman with a dirty cloth in her hand appeared in response to their knock. In her wake the travellers exchanged the peculiar close smell of the passage for the hardly more agreeable though varied odours of the kitchen of the hostelry, which appeared to be its dining-room also. A couple of rough-looking men were playing cards at a table in the middle of the room. The woman ushered the cousins to a small oblong table nearer to the window, at the end of which sat an individual who was making great play with his soup. His liberal exhibition of the method of suction came, however, to an end about a moment after the two had sat down, when, leaning back in his chair, he pulled out a toothpick and used it vigorously. While engaged in the performance of this merely ceremonial act—for there was no meat in the soup—he subjected the newcomers to a steady scrutiny, not diverted until the advent of a plate of meat, to which he transferred his attention.