"Growing soft at heart, Gaston? I have no pity for people who get in my way. Besides, the trick will keep his good friends busy, and we shall have to snatch our time. I agreed with Martin this very morning. It will be high water at midnight to-morrow. He will run close in at Pett Level and take us off."
"Then I will see to the horses, monsieur."
"Yes, now, at once. Then we will dine. I will go and warn Miss Durrell and her father."
Nance was sitting at her window when she heard De Rothan's footsteps in the gallery. The sound stirred the secret purpose of her suspense. All day she had been thinking over Jeremy's plan, and it seemed so impossible, so much like a trick out of an old play.
De Rothan knocked at her door.
"Nance, we dine in an hour."
"Yes."
"I will be here at your door to give you an arm."
She heard him go on to her father's room and knock. Their voices sounded harsh and quarrelsome. For comfort she gazed out toward the oak wood on the slope of the hill where Jeremy's watchers were hidden. She was almost angry with Jeremy for putting such a weapon into her hands. What chance had she to use it, and why did they thrust the responsibility upon a woman?
She heard De Rothan repass her door. He was humming that song that the royalists had sung so gallantly and so fatefully at Versailles: "O, Richard, O mon roi, si l'univers t'abandon——"