"Bring them along."
"But my brother will come home and see I have taken his best hat and overcoat—he will wonder what has become of me."
"Let him wonder! Did not the Queen bid you obey me as herself?"
"True, but Lady Ange will be expecting me to do up her hair. Nobody can make anything of her scanty wisp but me, and——"
"Lady Ange must wait till her hair grows again."
Without paying farther heed to his lamentations, the lord forced him into his cab and the horse started off at a fast gait. When they stopped to renew the horse, he believed they were going to the world's end, though the duke confessed that their destination was the frontier.
At Montmirail they were to pass the balance of the night, and indeed at the inn beds were ready. Leonard began to feel better, in pride at having been chosen for such an important errand.
At eleven they reached Sommevelle Bridge, where Choiseul got out to put on his uniform. His hussars had not yet arrived.
Leonard watched his preparations, particularly his freshening the pistol primings, with sharp disquiet and heaved sighs which touched the hearer.
"It is time to let you into the truth, Leonard; you are true to your masters so you may as well know that they will be here in a couple of hours. The King, the Queen, Lady Elizabeth, and the royal children. You know what dangers they were running, and dangers they are running still, but in two hours they will be saved. I am awaiting a hussar detachment to be brought by Lieut. Goguelat. We will have dinner and take our time over it."