“Have we not always felt that things would come right if we did not let in fear. All is going well for us, and we can look beyond to-day as we did the time we watched the storm from the terrace and you were the first to see a gleam of gold through the black clouds! Do not fear for your mother, only have faith. Now listen well. Henri is not bad, only weak, and he wants to make amends. He is now a soldier of the army of the revolution, and he leaves with his regiment at three o’clock to-day. He has been on guard all the morning in the hall of your great-aunt’s house. Food is always brought to your mother at noon. Henri says that she is then left entirely to herself until night. He has been on guard during the week, and, as he has served in your great-aunt’s house, he knows every corner of it.” Dian paused a moment and then went on slowly: “He knows of a small door on the first floor which leads into the garden, and he has given me the key to this door. People are not supposed to go to the upper floor where your mother is imprisoned, but little Vivi has been there several times. You know the house, and the way to go down the back stairs. You are Vivi from now on. She is safe at home, gladly staying inside in order to help her friends. I will tell you more as we walk along. Are you ready and willing to go?”
“Yes, as quickly as ever we can.” She jumped to her feet and followed him up the cellar stairs. It all seemed too unreal and strange to be true, as they walked through the silent house and out of the door into the garden, just as she and Rosanne had walked with Gonfleur that long ago—oh, so very long ago it seemed—the night of the bal masqué!
She and Dian mingled with the crowds going up the Champs Élysées, turning off on the street that led to the house of the Marquise du Ganne. They walked slowly. No one noticed them, and, except for an occasional greeting, no one spoke to them. Dian had often walked about with Vivi, and he was known to be a peasant from Brittany, which was his original home.
They could see the dark blur of the Bois against the soft spring sky, and Dian welcomed the thought that came to him. He had something to say to Marie Josephine that was going to be difficult, and he felt that it would be easier for her to hear it in the sweet spring woods than on the crowded street, so he suggested that they go on to the Bois and rest, before they went to Great-aunt Hortense’s house.
“There is more that I have to tell you, Little Mademoiselle,” he said.
They sat down under a great elm, the tender green tracery of leaves above them, the peace of sunshine and warm earth all about them. Dian turned toward Marie Josephine, his face alight with earnestness.
“Little Mademoiselle, you are ready to do brave things, but I am asking you now to do one that will be bravest of all. Champar, the coach driver, who is my friend, is risking much to save you all.” Dian looked off at the still, dim vistas of the wood as he spoke. The noise of the city, the harsh yelling and the rumble of carts, came to them clearly from the near-by street. Dian put it so, saying that Champar was doing all this for them out of the kindness of his heart. He did not say that he had done the coach driver a service once which was so great that it had meant life itself to him.
“Tell me what it is, Dian. I don’t know if I am brave. I’m not sure. But for maman I could do it. Shall we not go soon to Great-aunt Hortense’s house so that I can see maman?” said Marie Josephine. She could think of nothing else but that she was to see her mother and aid in saving her. She tried to realize that her great-aunt’s house was really her mother’s prison, but it only seemed like a bad dream. She could not believe that the dim, stately house, where they had so often gone for chocolate on winter afternoons, could now be a place from which to flee, an enemy’s stronghold.
She looked confidently at Dian, and the trust that had always come to her when with him, steadied her now.
“Tell me, Dian, what is it I shall do?”