his own room, and came down equipped for the automobile, followed by a servant carrying a valise, and bearing over his arm a fur overcoat for the Professor.
At half-past twelve that day the motor stopped at a rustic porter's lodge, from which an old woman came out and opened the gate. The lodge stood on the edge of a widely extending forest, into the depths of which an excellent private road penetrated, and up this avenue Henri guided his machine until, in a clearing of the wood, he stopped before an uninhabited hunting lodge, surrounded by a wide verandah. The chauffeur jumped down, received the key from his master, and unlocked the door; then he unstrapped the portmanteau, and took this and a well-filled lunch-basket inside. The two travellers discarded overcoats, caps, and goggles. Stranleigh bade farewell to the chauffeur, telling him that unless he heard to the contrary he was to bring the automobile from London to the lodge at one o'clock on the 2nd of September, and finally counselled Henri not to drink too much wine of the country during the month he was to spend in his native city of Tours. Receiving these admonitions and instructions, Henri circled round the stone house with his machine, and disappeared down the forest road, all the more eagerly because the hot lunch ordered on the way thither would be ready for him by the time he reached a village inn ten miles distant.
