"How soon?" Mrs. Baron tried to ask, her voice half strangled with tears.
"In a few days. Not directly. There is time for arrangements. We must find an escort for him, if possible."
"Am I to go home?" Roy inquired, as the meaning of his father's words and his mother's distress dawned upon him. "Will Napoleon let me?"
An exchange of glances took place between the gentlemen.
"I hope so," Colonel Baron replied cheerfully. "You are not a détenu, Roy, and there is no reason why any difficulty should be made. I must apply at once for a passport." Colonel Baron's mind misgave him as he spoke, for he had heard lately of more than one instance in which such an application for a passport had proved a failure. Although English ladies and boys under eighteen were not avowedly prisoners, yet every possible hindrance was beginning to be placed in the way of the return of anyone to England. This made him only the more desirous not to put off any longer getting Roy across the Channel.
Roy stood thinking.
"And I shall see Molly again," he observed. "I shall like that. It does seem an awful long while since I left her. Shall I go to school at once, sir, and shall I spend my holidays in Bath till you and mamma come back?"
Mrs. Baron hid her face.
"Yes, of course. I see—I ought to go," pursued Roy. "It wouldn't do for me to stop on here. In two years I've got to be a soldier, and then Napoleon would think he had a right to keep me altogether. That would stop me from fighting, and I should have to give my parole, I suppose, and to be a regular prisoner. Yes; I'd much better be off. How soon, I wonder? And I'll take letters home. It will be jolly to see Molly again."
Roy was making matters worse, and Ivor stood up, throwing aside his book.