“Or, better still, now I think of it,” he went on, “take his place. He can come on afterwards. He can learn where I am by asking at the Tuileries Palace.”
“I thank you again, my lord,” replied the adolescent, in a milder voice, for he had comprehended the delicacy of the offer: “I do not wish to deprive you of his services.”
It was hard to come to an arrangement now that the terms of peace were laid down.
“Better again, my dear Sebastian. Get up behind me. Dawn is peeping: at ten we shall be at Dammartin, half way; there we will leave the two horses, which would not carry us much farther, under charge of Baptistin, and we will take the post-chaise to Paris. I intended to do this so that you do not lead to any change in my arrangements.”
“If this be true, then, I accept,” said the young man, hesitating but dying to go.
“Down with you, Baptistin, and help Master Sebastian to mount.”
“Thanks, but it is useless,” said the youth leaping up behind the gentleman as light as a schoolboy.
The three on the two horses started off at the gallop, and disappeared over the ridge.
CHAPTER XII.
THE SPIRIT MATERIALIZED.
AT five next afternoon, Viscount Charny and Sebastian reached the Tuileries Palace gates. The name of his brother passed Isidore and his companion into the middle courtyard.