Clementina

s still writing at his table, but at his first glance towards Gaydon he started quickly to

bad news

o fast, he was so discomposed, that he could with diff

morning from Strasbourg and he read it aloud. The letter said a rumour was running through the town tha

e was careful to hide it. He sa

th us," said he, "but never that it

e!" exclai

does us a service. Our secret is very well kept, for here am I in Schlestadt, and people living in Schlestadt believe me on the road to Trent. I will go back with you to the major's and have a l

rd another man stumbling in a great haste up the stairs. Misset b

has heard the same

France, forbidding any officer of Dillon's regiment to be absent for more than twenty-four hour

nd the writing on the sheet had suddenly attracted his notice. It was writing in unusually regular lines. Gaydon, arrested by Misset's change from

ope that we should not be. The Court of France, you see, can do no less than forbid us, but I should not be surprised if it winks at us on the sly. We will giv

hat," said Misset, "

ehow he would bring the Princess safely out of her prison to Bologna. It could not be

Gaydon and O'Toole the same evening. "Did you happen by an

in a great hurry. "It was

ore than mere poetry, it was in Latin. I read the first line on the p

t. "I'll hear no more of it," he cr

ent smile of superiority wrinkled across his broad face from ear to ear. "Yes, I've done it," said he; "I've written poetry. It is a thing a polite gentleman should be able to do. So I did it. It wasn't in Latin, because the young lady it was written to didn't understand Latin. Her name

h never to acknowledge the debt. Wogan always grew melancholy and grave-faced on that subject when he had the leisure to be idle. He thought bitterly of the many Irish officers sent into exile and killed in the service of alien countries; his sense of injustice grew into a passionate sort of despair, and the de

partly guessed from a letter which was brought to W

na a dowry of ￡100,000 if she would marry the Prince of Baden, and that the Prince

y account if she accepts so favourable a proposal, rather than run so many hazards as she must needs do as

tina might be expected at Bologna? It was plain that he did not expect Wogan would succeed. He was disheartened. Wogan cam

crap of writing whatever to show either to her Highness or, what I take to b

but returned every twenty-four hours himself. They made the excuse that Misset had won a deal of money at play and was minded to lay it out in presents to his wife. The stratagem had a w

de Jenny to bear them company, but that was the work of an afternoon. He told her the story of the rich Aus

normous O'Toole to a rich and beautiful wife; she was to outwit an old curmudgeon of an uncle; she was to succour a maiden heart-broken and imprisoned. Jenny was quite uplifted. Never had a maid-servant been b

'Toole. Christian charity says we are to make others happy. I am a Christian, and as to the uncle he

this month. It was Wogan's effort to keep h

ed. It was not a happy time for Clementina. Yet she was not entirely unhappy. A thought had come to her and stayed with her which called the colour to her cheeks and a smile to her lips. It accounted to her for the delay; her pride was restored by it; because of it she became yet more patient with her mother, more gentle with the Prince of Baden