There was appeal in his voice. Convinced of my good faith, he was quite simply shifting the business to my shoulders--the French peasant trusting the man he ranked as of his master’s class. And oddly enough I found myself responding as if to a trusted person. I smoked a little, wondering whether Van Blarcom could catch the faint mutter of our voices. Then I gave my orders in the same muffled tones: “You will tell the servants that you wish to sleep here to-night, to watch the car. You will stay here very quietly until it is nearly dawn. Then you will creep to mademoiselle’s door and whisper what I have told you and say that I beg her to meet me before those others have awakened at five o’clock in--” Pondering a rendezvous, I hesitated. The room where I had dined, with its stone floor, its beamed ceiling, and dark panels, came first to my mind. I fancied, though, that some outdoor spot might be safer. I remembered opportunely that a passage led past this room, and that at its end I had glimpsed a little garden behind the inn. “In the garden,” I finished, and risked one straight look at him. “I can trust you, Georges?” The young man’s throat seemed to close. “_Monsieur le duc_ was my foster-brother, _Monsieur_,” he whispered. “I would die for him.” Who the deuce _monsieur le duc_ might be I did not tarry to discover. I had done all I could; the future was on the knees of the gods. Having smoked one more cigarette for the sake of verisimilitude, I rose, stretched myself ostentatiously, and crossed the courtyard to the stairs, where madame was descending. She had, she informed me, been preparing my bed. “And I wish monsieur good repose,” she ended volubly. “Hitherto, no Zeppelins have come to Bleau to disturb our dreams. Though, alas, who knows what they will do, now that we have lost our most gallant hero? Monsieur has heard of the Firefly of France, he who is missing?” That name again! Odd how it seemed to pursue me. “I believe I shall meet that fellow sometime if he’s living,” I reflected as I climbed the stairs. In my room, my candle lighted, I resigned myself to a ghastly night. I don’t like discomfort, though I can put up with it when I must. The bed looked as hard as nails; the bowl made cleanliness a duty, not a pleasure. And to think that I might have been sleeping in comfort at the Ritz! Tossing from side to side, pounding a cast-iron pillow, I dozed through uneasy intervals, and woke with groans and starts. I could not rid myself of the sense of something ominous hanging over me. The gray car ramped through my dreams; so did Van Blarcom; and between sleeping and waking, I pictured my coming interview with the girl, her probable terror, the force and menaces I should have to use, our hurried flight.