It had been so strange waking that way in the coach, for she had been dreaming of Lisle and had seen his face so vividly in her dream. He had on the velvet robes of the “Sun King,” and the jewels in his sword had sparkled as they had done on the night that he had sat beside her on the bed and told her that she was going to Les Vignes. What would he say if he could see her now? He would not even know that this funny, dirty girl was his little sister, Marie Josephine!
She had become used to the idea that she was going to run away to Paris. But in spite of her imagination she had somehow never quite been able to visualize it. Now it was a reality! She thought so much of the hidden cellar and of all that grandfather had told her that spring day so long ago.
“It is to be your secret unless by disclosing it you can save a life,” he had said. Paris, and all that was happening there, seemed like a bad dream. She had never really believed that anything could happen to her mother and Lisle. She often thought of the “other one” who knew of the cellar, and wondered if that person was helping, too. The waiting at Les Vignes for news of maman and Lisle had been more than she could bear.
The cart stopped with a jerk, and the driver turned his head.
“Are you awake back there in the cart? Do you hear me, girl?” he asked. “We’re almost at Melon. Are you going on to your cousins, or what will you do?”
Marie Josephine was alert in a moment. They must make the best of the darkness and of their long rest. She judged that Jean had told the driver to ask her, not knowing himself what she wanted to do.
“We’ll go on, thank you kindly. Come, Jean,” she replied, climbing down the side of the cart. Jean jumped off the driver’s seat and waved his cap up at him.
“That was a good ride and I slept enough to last a week when those old hens got quiet!” He laughed up at the driver as he spoke.
Suddenly a voice called through the darkness, “Are you Champar, the driver to the Calais road?” The next moment a boy with a round, honest face came up to the cart.
“That’s me,” the coach driver answered.