“Then the general sent me back the letter by an aide-de-camp, informing me that if I were found the next day within the circumscription of his command, he would have me arrested.”
“Arrested!” murmured the young man. “What! arrest you, my most faithful servant?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And notwithstanding you had signed the name Parry?”
“To all my letters, my lord; and the aide-de-camp had known me at St. James’s and at Whitehall, too,” added the old man with a sigh.
The young man leaned forward, thoughtful and sad.
“Ay, that’s what he did before his people,” said he, endeavoring to cheat himself with hopes. “But, privately—between you and him—what did he do? Answer!”
“Alas! my lord, he sent to me four cavaliers, who gave me the horse with which you just now saw me come back. These cavaliers conducted me, in great haste, to the little port of Tenby, threw me, rather than embarked me, into a fishing-boat, about to sail for Brittany, and here I am.”
“Oh!” sighed the young man, clasping his neck convulsively with his hand, and with a sob. “Parry, is that all?—is that all?”
“Yes, my lord; that is all.”