Her ally, whoever he might be, would have to start this very afternoon for Le Havre, taking with him the orders for Captain Barre and the signet ring which she would give him.
There were one hundred and fifty leagues between Versailles and Le Havre as the crow flies, and Lydie was fully aware of the measure of strength and endurance which a forced ride across country and without drawing rein would entail.
It would mean long gallops at breakneck speed, whilst slowly the summer's day yielded to the embrace of evening, and anon the glowing dusk paled and swooned into the arms of night. It would mean a swift and secret start at the hour when the scorching afternoon sun had not yet lifted its numbing weight from the journeyman's limbs and still lulled the brain of the student to drowsiness and the siesta; the hour when the luxurious idler was just waking from sleep, and the labourer out in the field stretched himself after the noonday rest.
It would mean above all youth and enthusiasm; for Le Havre must be reached ere the rising sun brought the first blush of dawn on cliffs, and crags, and sea; Le Monarque must set sail for Scotland ere France woke from her sleep.
Twelve hours in the saddle, a good mount, the strength of a young bullock, and the astuteness of a fox!
Lydie still sat in the window embrasure, her eyes closed, her graceful head with its wealth of chestnut hair resting against the delicate coloured cushions of her chair, her perfectly modelled arms bared to the elbow lying listlessly in her lap, one hand holding the infamous letter, written by the Duke of Cumberland to King Louis. She herself a picture of thoughtful repose, statuesque and cool.
It was characteristic of her whole personality that she sat thus quite calmly, thinking out the details of her plan, apparently neither flustered nor excited. The excitement was within, the desire to be up and doing, but she would have despised herself if she had been unable to conquer the outward expressions of her agitation, the longing to walk up and down, to tear up that ignoble letter, or to smash some inoffensive article that happened to be lying by.
Her thoughts then could not have been so clear. She could not have visualized the immediate future; the departure of Le Monarque at dawn—Captain Barre receiving the signet-ring—that breakneck ride to Le Havre.
Then gradually from out the rest of the picture one figure detached itself from her mind—her husband.
"Le petit Anglais," the friend of Charles Edward Stuart; weak, luxurious, tactless, but surely loyal.