My eyes function quite normally; but they are not an instantaneous camera. In the tenth part of a second I had turned my head to the right inside my little screen of privet. Alas! Round tubs, with more privet, blocked either end. I sprang up, but the round table was in my way. I extricated myself just one moment too late. I stood looking down the dark Rue de la Cordonnerie. But she had vanished. She--not he; for even in that momentary flash there had been no mistaking that uncovered red-gold head. But nothing else had been familiar. A black shawl had enwrapped her shoulders, a green plaid skirt had made an irregular rhomboid from the saddle downwards. Her stockings were black, and white canvas shoes with jute soles covered her feet. On the handle-bar had swung a basket, with parcels in it and a bâton of bread sticking out. They were in Dinan after all. III In Dinan after all, and risking the visitors who arrived by the boat! One moment though. There had been provisions in that basket on the handle-bar. If I myself could clear off during the busy hours of the day and take my omelette at a quiet roadside inn, what was there to prevent their doing the same? She had been "buying in." Possibly she was now cutting sandwiches for the morrow's consumption. Then, like myself, they would return at night, in the hour when the shutters were being put up, the Porches played heaven knew what gambols in the darkness, and even the lights of the Bretagne were extinguished, the awnings rolled up and the chairs and tables carried inside. Or for that matter, they might be in Dinan for the night only, and off on their bicycles in the morning. Yet somehow there had been a settled look about that figure that had passed the opening of the privet and been gone all in a moment. People who stay only one night in a place usually have their buying-in done for them. And if he was in vareuse and corduroys, her own dress had been indistinguishable from that of almost any shop-assistant or ouvreuse one might meet in the town. In vain had Alec and Madge gone through her wardrobe to see what garments were missing. That part of his description was useless. Only Madame Arnaud's face was Jennie Aird's.