owers guarding the
long, and relatively low, relatively modern, brick mansion of the epoch
of Louis Treize. The brick, once red, had toned down now to a soft old
rose; the towers, once white, were splashed above the line to which the
ivy climbed with rose and orange. Over the tip of the bluff and down its
side of southern exposure, toward the village of Melcourt, ran a park of
oak and chestnut, in all the October hues of yellow and olive-brown.

But ten minutes later, when the motor had made a detour round cliffs and
little inlets and arrived at the main entrance to the chateau, Davenant
found the aspect of things less intimidating. Through a high
wrought-iron grille, surmounted by the head of an armorial beast, he had
the view of a Lenotre garden, all scrolls and arabesques. The towers,
which at a distance had seemed part of a continuous whole, now detached
themselves. The actual residence was no more imposing than any
good-sized house in America. Davenant understood the chauffeur to say
that "Madame la marquise l'avait modernise jusqu'au bout des ongles."

Having summoned up courage to ring the bell, he found it answered by a
middle-aged woman with a face worn by time and weather to the polished
grooves and creases to which water wears a rock.

"On ne visite pas le chateau."

She made the statement with the stony, impersonal air of one who has to
say the same thing a good many times a year. Davenant pressed close to
the grille, murmuring something of which she caught the word "Madame."

"Madame la marquise n'est pas visible."

The quick Norman eye had, however, noticed the movement of Davenant's
hand, detecting there something more than a card. In speaking she edged
nearer the grille. Thrusting his fingers between the curves of the iron
arabesques, he said, in his best French: "_Prenez_."

Measuring time by the pounding of his heart rather than the ticking of
his watch, it seemed to him he had a long time to wait before the woman
reappeared, handing him back his card through the openwork of the
grille, saying briefly: "Madame la marquise ne recoit pas." Perhaps it
was the crestfallen look in the blond giant's face that tempted her to
add: "Je le regrette, monsieur."

In the compassionate tone he read a hint that all was not lost.
Scribbling under his name the words: "Boston, Mass. Very urgent," he
once more passed the card through the grille, accompanied by the manual
act that had won the woman's sympathy in t