another over very quietly, and then the three gendarmes dispersed with
swift, noiseless steps, each seeking a point of vantage commanding the
house.

Chester and Paul de Virieu walked quickly up the path.

Suddenly a shaft of bright light pierced the moonlit darkness. The
shutters of the dining-room of the Châlet des Muguets had been unbarred,
and the window was thrown wide open.

"_Qui va là?_" the old military watchword, as the Frenchman remembered
with a sense of terrible irony, was flung out into the night in the
harsh, determined voice of Madame Wachner.

They saw her stout figure, filling up most of the window, outlined
against the lighted room. She was leaning out, peering into the garden
with angry, fear-filled eyes.

Both men stopped simultaneously, but neither answered her.

"Who goes there?" she repeated; and then, "I fear, Messieurs, that you
have made a mistake. You have taken this villa for someone else's house!"
But there was alarm as well as anger in her voice.

"It is I, Paul de Virieu, Madame Wachner."

The Count spoke quite courteously, his agreeable voice thickened, made
hoarse by the strain to which he had just subjected it.

"I have brought Mr. Chester with me, for we have come to fetch Mrs.