"My romantic fancy is captivated by this little scheme. I go on amusing myself by describing how it might be done. I give you my word, mademoiselle, that it is all in jest—a freak of imagination nothing more.
"My sour comrade listens with a serpent's guile; his clever brain is twisting a rope out of my threads of fiction; he catches my bagatelle, and transforms it into a plot—the plot which would have proved successful but for Marguerite, the heroic.
"Eh bien, to continue:
"We ride away to the hotel at Regis that night, and monsieur had a little interview with Captain Brand, and tells him the message which Mademoiselle Walsingham has sent to him. Then is the captain furious, and impatient, and self-reproachful for his cold-blooded neglect of the poor fond grandmama, and he gallops off to the old castle on the wings of the wind, and is too late, and remains moping at the castle, seeing nobody but red-eyed Chetwode, for the magnificent Mademoiselle Walsingham has locked herself within her room and will not see him.
"My careful Mortlake gathers all this from the footmen and servants from the castle, and makes envious remarks upon the dog that has, and wants it not, and the dog that wants, and has it not.
"In the evening of that day on which Madame Brand is interred, Monsieur le Capitaine comes back to Regis choking with rage. Monsieur Mortlake offers congratulations, and hears the whole of the will from our angry captain, who utters a scornful fanfaronade against the brave Mademoiselle Walsingham. Cries royally:
"'I won't interfere with the companion—she's free for me; I'll get out of England as fast as I can, and try my luck abroad.'
"'Try the United States,' insinuates M. Mortlake.
"'Good! and join the army,' says our captain, with a war-glance which sweeps the horizon and sees coming fame, 'and win glory, since I am stripped of my fortune.'
"'Will you go, then?' pursues Monsieur Mortlake.