“Ah! my countryman,—so early astir?” said he, saluting me courteously. “Is this a habit of yours?”
“No, sir; I cannot claim the merit of such wakefulness. But last night I never closed my eyes. A few words you dropped in conversation in the drawing-room kept possession of my heart, and even yet I cannot expel them.”
“I saw it at the time I spoke,” replied the general, with a keen, quick glance; “you changed color twice as I mentioned the Abbé Gernon. Do you know him?”
“No, sir; it was his intended journey, not himself, for which I felt interested.”
“You would wish to accompany him, perhaps. Well, the matter is not impossible; but as time presses, and we have little leisure for mysteries, tell me frankly why are you here?”
In few words, and without a comment on any portion of my conduct, I told him the principal circumstances of my life, down to the decisive moment of my leaving the army.
“After that step,” said I, “feeling that no career can open to me here, I wish to regain my own country.”
“You are right,” said the general, slowly; “it is your only course now. The venture is not without risk,—less from the English cruisers than the French, for the abbé is well known in England, and Ireland too; but his Royalist character would find slight favor with Fouché. You are willing to run the risk, I suppose?”
“I am.”
“And to travel as the abbe's servant, at least to Falaise? there the disguise will end.”