"Heaven alone knows! May it, in its supreme mercy, direct me! Yet this is what I have thought, planned to do since you, sir, have taken pity on me. England and France are now most happily, as I think it, plunged in war once more. There is much to do——"
"Ay," interposed the admiral, while his handsome face flushed and his eyes glistened, for he was smarting over his and Torrington's recent defeat. "There is. There is Beachy Head to be wiped out—oh, for our next encounter with them!"
"Thereby," continued St. Georges, "my chance may come. For I may meet De Roquemaure. The sentence on me said he was appointed captain in one of the northern regiments; there have been stranger things than foes to the death meeting on the field, on opposite sides. Then for the child!"
"Ay, the child."
"For that I must go back to France, disguised it may be; nay, must be! That will be easy. The language is mine—though because of my mother's memory I have perfected myself in yours—in hers—there is nothing to reveal who or what I am but one thing"—and he made a gesture toward his shoulder where the hateful fleur-de-lis was branded in forever—"and that thing you may be sure none shall ever see again until my body is prepared for the grave. But—which to do first? To become a soldier or a sailor fighting for England, or travel disguised to Troyes and find out if—if—my child still lives. That would be my desire—only—only——"
"Only?" repeated the admiral, looking at him.
"Only," the other said—then broke off.
And Rooke knew as well as though St. Georges had uttered the words what he would have said. He knew that the man before him was beggared, that he had not a crown in the world to help him perform such a journey.