"When it is daylight we must make for the nearest village and get a conveyance to the railway-station. We must be miles from everywhere, or fire-escapes would have come along before now. I suppose the Baronne is dead." "She can have escaped only by a miracle," I said. "We shall probably know soon." "And that cur--Paulton. What can have become of him?" "I can't help thinking it was Paulton we saw struggling. But who can the woman have been? I hope it wasn't Vera. I am certain I heard her voice. What do you think?" "It may have been Mademoiselle de Coudron," Faulkner said. "She seems to have disappeared. What a brave girl! She must have climbed along the roofs to save us, with the fire just behind her. I wonder who the woman was who called for help first of all--I mean before we knew that fire had broken out." "The whole thing is most mysterious, but the biggest mystery is the disappearance of everybody. We heard at least three voices in the darkness!" Happening to glance down the long carriage drive which, after winding for a hundred yards across the broad, level lawns, disappeared into the wood, I noticed two men on horseback approaching at a walk. They had just emerged from the wood, and, so far as I could see in the half-light, were officials of some kind. They broke into a jog-trot as they caught sight of us, and took a short cut across the grass. As they came near us we saw that they were two gendarmes. "What are you doing here?" one of them asked sharply in French. I didn't like his tone, and I saw Faulkner's lip twitch with annoyance. Instead of answering, we looked the two men up and down. "What are you doing here--tell me at once," the speaker repeated, in a bullying tone. I suppose we did look disreputable, standing there without collars, with unlaced boots, and with our coat collars turned up. Also a day's growth of beard is hardly conducive to a smart appearance, and in most civilised countries but America a man is judged by his appearance and by the clothes he wears. "Who set fire to the chateau?" demanded the gendarme, quickly losing his temper as we refused to speak. "Oh, we did, of course," I exclaimed in French, meaning to be cynical. "We burnt it down on purpose." The man raised his black eyebrows, and glanced at his companion. "You hear that?" he said meaningly. The man who had remained silent produced a notebook and scribbled in it. Faulkner turned to me. "A few more of your `witticisms' Ashton," he said, "and we shall get penal servitude. Don't you know you are talking to State officials, and have you ever known a State official to be other than matter-of-fact? For Heaven's sake, don't make more statements that may be used in evidence against us." "My friend was joking," Faulkner said in his perfect French to the man who had addressed us; but the official seemed not to understand what the word _plaisanterie_ meant.