'Father!' cried Marion, 'where are you going?'
Then the Admiral put Peter to the door, saying he would do very well now, and took the maid upon his knee, pressing a kiss upon her troubled face.
'It means this, sweetheart,' he said. 'I'm going to London. Yes, to London, to bring some one back. A playmate for you, little one.'
He stroked her waving hair as he spoke, and kissed her again, the child, as was her way, taking it very quietly, but opening her grey eyes wide.
'You remember what I told you about poor de Delauret?'
Marion nodded. More than once her father had related the incident of his friendship for the French gentleman whom he had met on an expedition to the Indies. They had begun as enemies and crossed swords; they had ended by being sworn friends. De Delauret had nursed the Admiral through a vile fever; the Englishman later on had saved his friend from death at the hand of a rascal, who was for having his purse and jewelled rapier. During the years of the Admiral's fighting life the two had kept up a constant intercourse. Once the Admiral had gone to visit de Delauret in his home in Brittany, and found the Frenchman in sore trouble. His wife had just died and left him with an infant daughter, and he himself was ailing.
'What shall I do,' says he, 'about the little one, should I die? My Elise may be a great heiress through her mother's house. She will be sought after, taken to Court. And, saving the King's Majesty, you know what the Court of Louis is.'
The Admiral took the sick man's hand in his great one.
'You're not going to die,' says he. 'But, if you do, s'death, man! I'll take your child, and my wife shall bring her up at Garth.'
So the compact was settled. M. de Delauret did not die. But he was never again strong enough to travel, the Admiral later on was invalided; so the two lost sight of each other, and the great friendship was expressed only in occasional letters.