irst before he tried to find his father? Had Dormy Jamais warned
the Governor? Clearly not, or the town bells would be ringing and the
islanders giving battle. What would the world think of him!

Well, what was the use of fretting here? He would go on to the town,
help to fight the French, and die that would be the best thing. He
knelt, and unclasped his father's fingers from the handle of the sword.
The steel was cold, it made him shiver. He had no farewell to make. He
looked out to sea. The tide would come and carry his father's body out,
perhaps-far out, and sink it in the deepest depths. If not that, then
the people would bury Olivier Delagarde as a patriot. He determined that
he himself would not live to see such mockery.

As he sped along towards the town he asked himself why nobody suspected
the traitor. One reason for it occurred to him: his father, as the whole
island knew, had a fishing-hut at Gorey. They would imagine him on the
way to it when he met the French, for he often spent the night there.
He himself had told his tale to the soldiers: how he had heard the baker
and the Frenchman talking at the shop in the Rue d'Egypte. Yes, but
suppose the French were driven out, and the baker taken prisoner and
should reveal his father's complicity! And suppose people asked why he
himself did not go at once to the Hospital Barracks in the town and to
the Governor, and afterwards to Gorey?

These were direful imaginings. He felt that it was no use; that the lie
could not go on concerning his father. The world would know; the one
thing left for him was to die. He was only a boy, but he could fight.
Had not young Philip d'Avranche; the midshipman, been in deadly action
many times? He was nearly as old as Philip d'Avranche--yes, he would
fight, and, fighting, he would die. To live as the son of such a father
was too pitiless a shame.

He ran forward, but a weakness was on him; he was very hungry and
thirsty-and the sword was heavy. Presently, as he went, he saw a stone
well near a cottage by the roadside. On a ledge of the well stood a
bucket of water. He tilted the bucket and drank. He would have liked to
ask for bread at the cottage-door, but he said to himself, Why should he
eat, for was he not going to die? Yet why should he not eat, even if he
were going to die? He turned his head wistfully, he was so faint with
hunger. The force driving him on, however, was greater than hunger--he
ran harder.... But undoubtedly