Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/199

 take what a newspaper says. Newspapers are always wrong," said the first man pityingly, in a tone of experienced scepticism. "If this happened at ten in the morning, they can't have been together more than an hour. If he was seen here in Bayonne at six o'clock the evening before, he couldn't possibly have reached Saint Sauveur before nine the next morning. You know you wait three or four hours for the connection at Lourdes. To my mind there's nothing in it. I will take you to the convent to see her, if you insist, but I have no liking for scenes with hysteric women."

"Oh, messieurs!" said Jeanne shocked at the idea, "you couldn't possibly expect to see her now! Not for a week, at least, the doctor said."

"A week!" cried the second voice, dismayed, "sacrebleu, I can't kick my heels for a week, waiting."

"Well, suppose we go through the usual routine?" suggested the other. "Go to see the family of the young man, and if they confirm all this … there's no use going further. There is plenty of time for you to get all the facts you need for your report, and catch the one o'clock train back to Saint Sauveur."

Jeanne said now jocularly, with a change of manner to the intimate knowing tone of a servant-girl speaking to a policeman, "If you're not in a hurry, you must stay to have a glass in honor of the house. We have an excellent white wine, and the patron never counts the bottles."

Marise heard her lead them down the hall and across the landing to the dining-room, and then in an instant heard her come back and run on tip-toe up the hall. She thrust her head through the curtains, showing a haggard gray face, glistening with sweat, and whispered, "Don't move, don't speak to a soul till I get back. I must see the Garniers before they do."

Even without this, Marise would have been incapable of moving hand or foot. Half an hour later, she was sitting in exactly the same position frozen and deathly sick, when Jeanne let herself in cautiously. From the gust of sounds that came in from across the landing, as the door was opened,