"One moment. May I beg a kindness?"
"Anything in the world."
"If Colonel Baron does not return before we start—and he will not—would you, if possible, find him, and ask him to come at once to the citadel? Then Mrs. Baron—"
Ivor's set features yielded slightly. The thought of Roy's mother without her boy was hard to face. Lucille watched him with grieved eyes.
"I will tell her, but not everything—not yet as to Bitche, for that may be averted. I will stay with her—comfort her—do all that I am able. Is that what you would wish?"
"God bless you," he said huskily, and she hurried away.
"Den, have I got to go with those fellows really?" asked Roy, beginning to understand what he had brought upon himself. "I never thought of that. Can't you manage to get me off? Won't they let me wait till my father comes home?"
"They will consent to no delay. He will follow us soon. And, Roy, I must urge you to be careful what you say. Any word that you may let slip, without thinking, will be used against you. I hoped you had learnt that lesson."
A listener, overhearing Denham with the gendarmes, might have questioned whether he had learnt it himself; but Roy was in no condition of mind to be critical. He could not restrain some measure of dismay.
"And if you and my father can't get me off! If I am sent to Bitche—"