Eased therefore by these reflections, Jacquette made her way back to the Duchess and was about to enter the sleeping-room when she paused at hearing the voice of Hortense raised shrilly, as though in excitement. "What!" she heard her say. "La Truaumont makes no reply! You cannot awaken him and his door is locked inside. _Dio mio_, what does it mean! Have all failed in their trust! All deserted me!" "Ah! madame," Jacquette exclaimed, as now she entered the room, "it must be with the captain as with Humphrey. Both have descended to make preparations for our departure after leaving their doors locked behind them for security." "It may be so," the Duchess exclaimed. "Yet if it is, 'tis strange. Humphrey sleeps on my left, yet I heard no sound of movement in his room late or early, nor did you hear any in the room on your right where the captain slept. 'Tis passing strange." "Yet easily solved, madame," Jacquette replied, "if all is as you suspect, and I," to herself, "hope. I will but don my clothes and then descend myself." "Instead, send Suzanne. She is dressed and can go down at once." Whereupon Suzanne, who had by now returned with the chocolate and chip bread for their early meal, was bidden to go at once below and see what had become of the absent men. "And," said the Duchess to her ere she went, "seek out that other, if they are not about. That _matamore_ who styles himself Fleur de Mai. If you cannot find them bring him here to my presence." The girl sped away to do as she was bidden, and, while she was gone, Hortense, sitting up in her bed, drank her chocolate and seemed more puzzled at the circumstance that neither she, on one side, had heard a sound from Humphrey, nor Jacquette, on the other, from La Truaumont, than at aught else. Then, when five minutes had elapsed, Suzanne, forgetting in her excitement to knock, and forgetting also all deference due to her mistress, rushed into the room, exclaiming:-- "Oh! madame, neither the illustrious captain nor monsieur the Englishman have been seen below this morning. Yet--yet--the horses are all in their stalls, not one is missing." "Oh! great heavens," moaned Jacquette at this significant piece of intelligence. "And the other," cried the Duchess, "the great truculent one? The fellow called Fleur de Mai. What of him? Why is he not here as I commanded?" "Madame," the maid cried, her voice rising almost to a shriek, "he, too, is missing. He slept before the fire in the great room wrapped in his cloak, but at daybreak, when the house was opened, he was no longer there--and--madame, neither can he be found." "Not found. Yet there was still another, the meaner one; the one called Boisfleury," the Duchess cried, springing out of her bed in beauteous disarray. "What of him? Is he too, missing? And the landlord, where is he?"