“And now, Rupert, let us to sleep; day is breaking, and although your twenty-three years may need no rest, I like a few hours’ sleep when I can get them.”

Upon the following day the conversation was renewed.

“I think, Rupert, that my captivity is really a fortunate one for our plans.  So long as I remained in France my every movement would be watched.  I dared not even write to Adele, far less think of going to see her.  Now I am out of sight of the creatures of Louis, and can do as I please.

“I have been thinking it over.  I will cross to England.  Thence I will make my way in a smuggler’s craft to Nantes, where the governor is a friend of mine.  From him I will get papers under an assumed name for my self and daughter, and with them journey to Poitiers, and so fetch her to England.”

“You will let me go with you, will you not?” Rupert exclaimed.  “No one can tell I am not a Frenchman by my speech, and I might be useful.”

“I don’t know, Rupert.  You might be useful, doubtless, but your size and strength render you remarkable.”

“Well, but there are big Frenchmen as well as big Englishmen,” Rupert said.  “If you travel as a merchant, I might very well go as your serving man, and you and I together could, I think, carry mademoiselle in safety through any odds.  It will not be long to wait.  I cannot leave until Lille falls, but I am sure the duke will give me leave as soon as the marshal surrenders the city, which cannot be very many days now; for it is clear that Vendome will not fight, and a desperate resistance at the end would be a mere waste of life.”

So it was arranged, and shortly afterwards Rupert took his friend Major Dillon into his confidence.  The latter expressed the wildest joy, shook Rupert’s hand, patted him on the back, and absolutely shouted in his enthusiasm.  Rupert was astonished at the excess of joy on his friend’s part, and was mystified in the extreme when he wound up: 

“You have taken a great load off my mind, Rupert.  You have made Pat Dillon even more eternally indebted to you than he was before.”

“What on earth do you mean, Dillon?” Rupert asked.  “What is all this extraordinary delight about?  I know I am one of the luckiest fellows in the world, but why are you so overjoyed because I am in love?”

“My dear Rupert, now I can tell you all about it.  I told you, you know, that in the two winters you were away I went, at the invitation of Mynheer van Duyk, to Dort; in order that he might hear whether there was any news of you, and what I thought of your chance of being alive, and all that; didn’t I?”

“Yes, you told me all that, Dillon; but what on earth has that got to do with it?”