The first break came about with the departure of Roger Braund. An English ship put into the harbour one morning at the end of November, and her master brought a letter which compelled my comrade to return home.
"No," he said in reply to my question, "there is no bad news; it is simply a matter of business. I shall not wish you good-bye; I have still my promised visit to Paris to make. Perhaps we shall all be able to go there together."
What he said to Jeanne I do not know, but she did not seem so much cast down at his departure as I expected, for they two had become very close friends. Indeed, I sometimes thought their friendship was even warmer than that between Jeanne and Felix.
However, we went down to the harbour, Felix and I, and aboard his ship, an uncomfortable-looking craft, with but scanty accommodation for a passenger. But Roger did not mind this. He had sailed in a much worse vessel, he said, and a far longer distance than the passage across the Channel.
Felix shrugged his shoulders. "On land," he remarked, "danger does not alarm me, but I should not care to put to sea in such a boat as that!" in which I was at one with him.
"I will choose a better craft next time," laughed Roger, as, after bidding him farewell, we walked across the gangway to the wharf, where we stood waving our hands until he disappeared from sight.
"Does he really mean to return?" my comrade asked.
"I think so. He has evidently made up his mind to visit Paris."
"I fancy," said Felix rather bitterly, it struck me, "that he will be satisfied with Rochelle, as long as Queen Joan holds her Court there!"
My friend was not in the best of humour, but he recovered his spirits in a day or two, and before a week had passed was as lively and merry as usual. Black Care and Felix were not congenial companions.