"By God! that's where he'll be again, unless he hurries," cried the military gentleman. "That's your father who has just run up-stairs."
His father up-stairs! The day had been a succession of surprises to Idris, and this was the climax of them all. He had never known such an exciting time. Deaf to the gentleman's command to ascend the vehicle he turned and scampered hastily up to his mother's sitting-room, where he beheld a sight that struck him dumb.
The stranger was standing in the middle of the room with Mrs. Breakspear in his arms, her cheek pillowed on his breast.
"Eric, O, Eric!" she murmured: and the pure joy of that moment transfigured her face with the light and beauty of an angel's.
"Edith, my sweet wife!" cried the man pressing her lips to his. "This kiss is a compensation for all I have suffered. There! you mustn't faint. Why, here's our boy. What a fine fellow he is becoming! Well, Idris, what do you think of your father and his court dress?"
Idris' face fell as he surveyed the newcomer. This man with his close-cropped head, grimy visage, stubbly beard, and half-savage air, his father! Beneath the grey ulster there peeped out the prison livery, clad in which garb divine Apollo himself would lose all grace and majesty.
Eric Marville was not slow to read the thoughts of his little son, and he smiled grimly.
"Upon my word, he stares as if I were some wild animal. I verily believe I am: prison life grinds every trace of the godlike out of a man.—But come, Edith, we haven't a moment to lose. You can hear that they have discovered my escape," he continued, as another boom rolled over the moorland. "Rochefort was for hurrying me on board his yacht at once, but it wasn't likely that I would leave you and the boy behind, when you were so close at hand. Come, Edith and Idris, wife and son, come! Away to a new life in a new land!"
At that moment there came from without the warning voice of Captain Rochefort.