Six days passed without anything occurring. Impatient as Philip de
la Vallee and Desmond were to get forward, they could not hurry
the slow pace at which they travelled. Mademoiselle Pointdexter
was now suffering from the reaction after her month of captivity
and anxiety. The baron therefore travelled with provoking
slowness. Obtaining, as he did, relays of horses at each post,
they could without difficulty have travelled at almost double the
rate at which they actually proceeded, but stoppages were made at
all towns at which comfortable accommodation could be obtained.
Indeed, in some places the roads were so bad that the carriage
could not proceed at a pace beyond a walk, without inflicting a
terrible jolting upon those within it.

"There is one comfort," Philip said, when he had been bewailing
the slowness of their pace, "my men should reach us at Nevers, at
the latest, and you may take it as tolerably certain that any
attempt to interfere with us will take place considerably south of
that town. I should guess that it would be somewhere between
Moulins and Thiers. If our escort does not come before we reach
Moulins, I shall begin to think that your suggestion was correct,
and that my messenger has indeed been intercepted and slain."

Desmond could not gainsay the truth of his friend's calculation,
but he said:

"Possibly, Philip, instead of being attacked by the way, de
Tulle's agents might rob him of his letter at one of the inns at
which he put up. Did he know its contents?"

"Yes. I told him that it contained an order for the majordomo to