Then the two drifted into talk of the past, and of the painful years of their childhood and early acquaintance. The hours, all too short, flew by, and at twilight the order was given to cast loose the ship and set sail. The two young men bade each other farewell in the cabin, for they could not endure that their parting should be witnessed on the common deck.
"Adieu, adieu, Jean!" murmured Louis Charles huskily. "I owe you a debt that a lifetime would be too short to repay! But for you I would have died long since, in that horrible place, and I believe that you and Yvonne are the only ones in this world who truly care for me now. My gratitude and love is all that I can give you, for I am poor as regards worldly wealth. But I know you understand! You are being rewarded by another and more powerful hand than mine. Give my love to Yvonne, and my most earnest wishes for her happiness. In you she will have the husband she deserves!" Jean was almost too overcome to speak at all.
"I—I love you!" he stammered. "And I have always secretly hoped that sometime you would come back to live among us!"
"That is impossible, as you see," said the young man. "This parting is harder to me than I dare to tell you, for you are all that links me with my former life! Adieu, adieu, Jean!"
But Jean could trust himself no longer. He bent and kissed the hands of Louis Charles, and hastily left the cabin without another word. On the quay he watched, while the great ship drew in her cables, and moved majestically out into the tide. But ere the dark hull vanished entirely from view, Jean perceived a white handkerchief fluttering from the railing of the afterdeck, and he knew it to be the last farewell of Louis XVII of France!
Jean lived to be a very old man, and he saw in his day many astonishing changes, and lived through a number of singular epochs in the history of his country. One of the most peculiar circumstances, however, that came under his ken was as follows:
In the course of the years, a rumour was wafted abroad (no one knew just how it started), that perhaps Louis XVII had not died as a child in the Tower, after all, but had escaped in some marvellous manner and was now living. Some believed this, and many more did not! But the strangest part of it was that in the course of ten years, no less than forty impostors arose, each claiming that he was the escaped Louis XVII, and demanding his right to the throne, for the Bourbon monarchy had been restored for a time. Of these forty impostors, the claims of thirty-eight were so obviously and impudently preposterous, that they were at once detected as false. But there were two, Baron de Richmont and Count Naundorff, who really seemed to know an amazing amount about the little Dauphin's early life and affairs, and who told wonderful stories of their escape from the Tower. Count Naundorff's was singularly like what had really happened.
But there was always something lacking somewhere, some loose, ill-fitting stone in their carefully constructed fabrication. None of them ever gained much serious attention. Perhaps these two had at some time heard the story of the escape from a member of the Brotherhood who had been false to his oath. Who can tell!
Jean used to listen to these tales with interest, and not a few times he was called upon to interview personally, some brazen claimant of the throne of France. One glance however, sufficed him, and his decision in the matter was always accepted as final. Not infrequently someone would say to him: