I looked round in bewilderment.

"Where am I?" I asked, still bound by that first memory of New York.

"In Sous-le-Cap, _m'sieur_," answered the man.

I felt in my pocket for my watch and drew it out. It was strange that the men had not robbed me, but I suppose they had become terrified at their work and had run off. However, I did not think of that at the time.

I think my action was an automatic one, the natural refuge for a perplexed man. But the sight of the time brought back my memory, and the events of the day rushed back into my mind with a force that seemed to send an accession of new strength through my limbs.

It was a few minutes past eight. And the boat sailed at nine. I must have lain stunned in Sous-le-Cap Street for an hour and a half, at least, and only the supreme necessity of awakening, realized through unconsciousness, had saved me from dying under the snows.

I found that I could walk, and having explained to the man that I wished to go to the chateau, was taken by him to the top of a winding road near at hand, from which I could see my destination at no great distance from me.

Dismissing my friendly guide, and sending him back rejoicing with liberal largesse, I hurried as quickly as I could make my way along the ramparts, past the frowning, ancient cannon skirting the park, until I burst into the chateau at half past the hour.

I must have presented a dreadful spectacle, for my hair and collar were matted with blood, and I saw the guests stare and shrink from me. The clerk came toward me and stopped me at the entrance to the elevator.

"Where as Miss Hewlett?" I gasped.

"Didn't you meet her? She left here nearly an hour ago."

I caught him by the arm, and I think he imagined that I was going to seize him by the throat also, for he backed away from me, and I saw a look of fear come into his eyes. The elevator attendant came running between us.

"Your friend----" he began.

"My _friend_?" I cried.

"He came for her and said that you had met with an accident," the clerk continued. "She went with him at once. He took her away in a sleigh.

I was sure that you had missed her when you came in."

But already I was half-way across the hall and running for the door. I raced wildly across the court and toward the terrace.

The meaning of the scheme was clear. Jacqueline was on Captain Duhamel's boat, which sailed at nine. And only twenty minutes remained to me. If I had not had the good luck to meet Dubois!

I must have noticed a clock somewhere during the minute that I was in the chateau, and though I had not been conscious of it, the after-image loomed before my eyes. As I ran now I could see a huge phantom clock, the dial marked with enormous Roman letters, and the hands moving with dreadful swiftness toward the hour of nine.

I had underestimated Leroux's shrewdness. He must have telegraphed instructions from New York before my train was out of the county, secured the boat, laid his plans during his journey northward, and had me struck down while Jacqueline was stolen from my care. And he had spared no details, even to enlisting the aid of Pere Antoine.

If he had known that my destination was the same as his, he might have waited. But it was not the character of the man to wait, any more than it was to participate personally in his schemes. He worked through others, sitting back and pulling the strings, and he struck, each blow on time.

I ought to have known that. I should have read him better. I had always dawdled. I trusted to the future, instead of acting. What chance had I against a mind like his?

I was a novice at chess, pitting myself against a master at the game.

I must have been running aimlessly up and down the terrace, blindly searching for a road down to the lower town, for a man seized me by the sleeve, and I looked into the face of the hotel clerk again. He seemed to realize that more was the matter even than my appearance indicated, for he asked no questions, but apparently divined my movements.

"This way!" he said, and hurried me to a sort of subway entrance, and down a flight of steps. Before me I saw the turnstile which led to a cable railway. He paid my fare and thrust me into a car. A boy came to close the latticed door.

"Wait!" I gasped. "Who was it that called?"

"The man with the mustache who asked for you--about whom you inquired."

I turned away. I had thought it was Leroux. Of course it had not been he.

The car glided down the cliff, and stopped a few seconds later, I emerged through another turnstile and found myself in the lower town again at the foot of the precipice, above which rose the chateau with its imposing facade, the ramparts, and the towering citadel.

The hands of the phantom clock pointed to ten minutes of nine. But I knew the gulf lay before me at the end of the short, narrow street that led down to it, up which I had passed two hours before upon that journey which so nearly ended in the snow-drifts of Souse-le-Cap.

I reached the wharf and raced along the planks. I was in time, although the engines were throbbing in the _Sainte-Vierge_. But it was not she, but the dark _Claire_ I sought at that moment, and I dashed toward her.

A man barred my approach. He caught me in his strong arms and held me fast. I dash my fists against his face, but he would not let me go.

"Are you mad, _monsieur_?" he burst out as I continued to struggle.

And then I recognized my captor as Captain Dubois.

"Jacqueline is on the _Claire_!" I cried, trying to make him understand. "They took her there. They----"

"It is all right," answered Dubois, holding me with one hand, while with the other he wiped a blood drop from his lip where I had struck him. "It is all right. I have her."

I stared wildly at him. "She is on the _Claire_!" I cried again.

"No, _mon ami_. She is aboard the _Sainte-Vierge_," replied Dubois, chuckling, "and if you wish to accompany _mademoiselle_ you must come with me at once, for we are getting up steam."

I could not believe him. I thought that Leroux had tampered with the honest man. It was not until he had taken me, half forcibly, aboard, and opened the cabin door, that I saw her. She was seated upon her berth, and she rose and came toward me with a glad little cry.

"Jacqueline!" I cried, and clasped her in my arms for joy, and quite forgot.

A dancing shadow fell upon the wall behind the oil-lamp. The honest captain was rubbing his hands in the doorway and chuckling with delight.

"It is all right, it is all right; excuse me, _monsieur_," he said, and closed the door on us. But I called him, and he returned, not very reluctantly.

"What has happened, captain?" I asked. "You are not going to leave me in suspense?"

"But what has happened to you, _monsieur_?" he asked, with great concern, as he saw the blood on my coat-collar, "You have met with an accident?"

Jacqueline cried out and ran for water, and made me sit down, and began bathing my head. I contrived to whisper something of what had occurred during the moments when Jacqueline flitted to and fro. Dubois swore roundly.

"It is my fault, _monsieur_," he said. "I should have known. I should have accompanied you home. It would be a tough customer who would venture to meddle with Alfred Dubois! But I was anxious to get to the telegraph office to inform M. Danton of your coming. And I suspected something, too, for I knew that Leroux had something more in his mind than simply to convey some of his men to St. Boniface at such expense.

"So as soon as I had finished telegraphing I hurried home and bade adieu to Marie and the little Madeline and the two nephews, and then I came back to the boat--and that part I shall tell you later, for _mademoiselle_ knows nothing of the plot against her, and has been greatly distressed for you. So it shall be understood that you fell down and hurt your head on the ice--eh?"

I agreed to this. "But what did she think?" I asked, as Jacqueline went back for some more water.

"That you had sent her to the _Sainte-Vierge_," he answered, "and that you were to follow her here--as you did. Even now the nephews are searching the lower town for you."

"But if I had not come before nine?"

"I should have waited all night, _monsieur_, even though I had lost my post for it," he said explosively, and I reached out and gripped his hand.