"I have just left your sisters, Marie," Harry said, "and you may imagine their delight at the news I gave them. You are to see them this evening in the gardens of the Tuileries."
"Oh, Harry, how good you are! How much you have done for us!"
Harry laughed lightly.
"Not very much yet; besides, it has been a pleasure as well as a duty. The girls have both been so brave, and Jeanne has the head of a woman."
"She is nearly a woman now, Harry," Marie said gently. "She is some months past sixteen, and though you tell me girls of that age in England are quite children, it is not so here. Why, it is nothing uncommon for a girl to marry at sixteen."
"Well, at anyrate," Harry said, "Jeanne has no time for any thought of marrying just at present. But there is another thing I want to tell you about. I have first a confession to make. I have deceived you."
"Deceived me!" Marie said with a smile. "It can be nothing very dreadful, Harry. Well, what is it?"
"It is more serious than you think, Marie. Now you know that when the trouble began I felt it quite out of the question for me to run away, and leave you all here in Paris unprotected. Such a thing would have been preposterous."
"You think so, Harry, because you have a good heart; but most people would have thought of themselves, and would not have run all sorts of risks for the sake of three girls with no claim upon them."
"Well, Marie, you allow then that a person with a good heart would naturally do as I did."