“You are here, Little Mademoiselle, and that is well. The young ladies and Madame le Pont were uneasy about you. Madame le Pont requested me to say that you were to come at once.” The shepherd stood up and reached for his cloak from the back of the settle. He was a taller man than Neville and had the look of one who had lived always in the open, close to the secrets of beasts and birds. Neville wore again his wig and his familiar house uniform of red and gold. It did not seem possible that he could ever have worn the queer, shabby disguise in which he had come back from Paris. He looked very pale and ill. No one but the shepherd knew of the dire peril through which the faithful man had passed in order to return with the message from the comtesse and to protect the little group at Les Vignes. Dian knew, and there was something he had to say to him, so he put on his cloak and went with them. The wind shrieked eerily as Marie Josephine walked through the forest, with Neville and Dian on each side of her. Mother Barbette had wrapped her cloak about her and pulled the cape up over her curls. She walked quietly, holding Dian’s hand so that he might steady her steps over the fallen branches of trees or the sudden twists of roots here and there. Neville’s lanthorn cast a dancing light ahead of them. Marie Josephine was thinking deeply. Could it be that she was the same laughing, mischievous girl who had run away after dinner, leaving the others in the great firelit drawing-room? She had tried to be happy because she could not believe that anything could happen to those she loved. Now, suddenly, she was awake, and because it was her nature to do things thoroughly she was very much awake indeed. She knew, as she walked back under the moonless sky toward Les Vignes, where the lights shone faintly, that she would never be the same little girl again. Dian had been speaking of Lisle. He had not said so, but she knew it. Dian felt that Lisle was in danger. There was no use in being happy or playing in the woods with Jean any longer. She must be awake. It might be that there was something she could do! She heard the clock strike eleven that night, and then twelve. She had lain awake for three hours listening to the thin branches of walnut trees swishing and flapping against her windows. When the clock struck twelve she sat up in bed and listened. She had opened the window a little way because she loved to feel the sweet, chill wind. She heard voices quite distinctly by the side of the house. Some one spoke in a low tone, and a voice answered that she knew right away was Dian’s.