And with hope and resolution born again in my heart I broke into a fair run, and, with a wave of my hand, left Gustave in the middle of the road, staring after me and plainly convinced that I was mad. Perhaps I was not far from that state. Mad or not, in any case after three minutes I thought no more of my good friend Gustave de Berensac, nor of aught else, save the inn outside Pontorson, just where the old road used to turn toward Mont St. Michel. To that goal I pressed on, forgetting my weariness and my pain. For it might be that the carriage would still stand in the yard, and that in the house I should come upon the object of my search. Half an hour's walk brought me to the inn, and there, to my joy, I saw the carriage drawn up under a shed side by side with the inn-keeper's market cart. The horses had been taken out; there was no servant in sight. I walked up to the door of the inn and passed through it. And I called for wine. A big stout man, wearing a blouse, came out to meet me. The inn was a large one, and the inn-keeper was evidently a man of some consideration, although he wore a blouse. But I did not like the look of him, for he had shifty eyes and a bloated face. Without a word he brought me what I ordered and set it down in a little room facing the stable yard. "Whose carriage is that under your shed?" I asked, sipping my wine. "It is the carriage of the Duke of Saint-Maclou, sir," he answered readily enough. "The duke is here, then?" "Have you business with him, sir?" "I did but ask you a simple question," said I. "Ah! what's that? Who's that?" I had been looking out of the window, and my sudden exclamation was caused by this--that the door of a stable which faced me had opened very gently, and but just wide enough to allow a face to appear for an instant and then disappear. And it seemed to me that I knew the face, although the sight of it had been too short to make me sure. "What did you see, sir?" asked the inn-keeper. (The name on his signboard was Jacques Bontet.) I turned and faced him full. "I saw someone look out of the stable," said I. "Doubtless the stable-boy," he answered; and his manner was so ordinary, unembarrassed, and free from alarm, that I doubted whether my eyes had not played me a trick, or my imagination played one upon my eyes. Be that as it might, I had no time to press my host further at that moment; for I heard a step behind me and a voice I knew saying: "Bontet, who is this gentleman?" I turned. In the doorway of the room stood the Duke of Saint-Maclou. He was in the same dress as when he had parted from me; he was dusty, his face was pale, and the skin had made bags under his eyes. But he stood looking at me composedly, with a smile on his lips.