‘He must have rest and care,’ whispered Massoni to Carrol; and then turning to the youth, he took him by the hand and led him away.
Having consigned him to the care of a faithful servant, the Père re-entered the room, his face flushed, and his dark eyes flashing.
‘What miserable deception is this?’ cried he. ‘Is this the daring, headlong spirit I have been hearing of? Are these the parts to confront an enterprise of peril?’
‘He is——’
‘He is dying,’ broke in the Père passionately.
‘Confess, at least, he is a Stuart, in every line and lineament.’
‘Ay, Carrol, even to the word failure, written in capitals on his brow.’
‘But you see him wasted by fever and long suffering; he rose from a sick-bed to undertake this wearisome journey.’
‘Better had he kept his bed till death released him. I tell you it is not of such stuff as this adventurers are made. His very appearance would dash men with discouragement.’
‘Bethink you what he has gone through, Père; the sights and scenes of horror that have met his eyes—the daily carnage amid which he lived—himself, twice rescued from the scaffold, by what seems like a miracle—his days and nights of suffering in friendless misery too. Remember, also, how little of hope there was to cheer him through all this. If ever there was one forlorn and destitute, it was he.’