get relays every eight or ten miles,
while it would be difficult to get horses accustomed to such
work."

"You don't think that I should be able to ride, doctor?"

"Certainly not in less than a month, probably not in six weeks."

"Then I must be carried," Philip said. "I should work myself into
the fever you talk of, if I were to be kept here.

"What are your plans, Desmond?"

"I have not thought of them, yet. At any rate, I shall stay with
you till you are well enough to start."

"I could not think of that, Desmond."

"You have no say in the matter, Philip. In the first place, you
will get on all the faster for my being with you. In the next
place, ten days of my leave are already expired, and were we to go
on straight to Pointdexter, I should only have a few days there
before starting back for Paris, and I must therefore postpone my
visit to some future time. I can stay here ten days, accompany you
some four days on your journey, and then turn back again."

"A nice way of spending a month's holiday!" Philip grumbled.

"It will be a holiday that I shall long look back to," Desmond
said quietly, "and with pleasure. I do not say that I should not
have enjoyed myself at the baron's chateau, for that I should have
done; but the adventures that I have gone through will remain in
my mind, all my life, as having gained the friendship of yourself,
the baron, and his daughter."

"Friendship seems to me too mild a word for it, Desmond. You have
earned a gratitude so deep that it will be a pain to us, if we
cannot show it in deeds."

"And now, Philip," Desmond said, changing the subject abruptly, "I
suppose that you will be, at once, sending off one of your men
with the news that you are in a fair way towards recovery.
Mademoiselle de Pointdexter is suffering at the thought that you
were probably killed. I did my best to give her hope, but without
much success. Your two retainers have been fretting greatly that
they were not allowed to see you, but I think that now they can be
brought up, and you can choose one of them to act as your
messenger. He will, of course, ride post, and can arrive at
Pointdexter very soon after the baron, if indeed he does not get
there first. If he starts at once, and changes horses at each
place, he may be there by tomorrow at noon, if not earlier; for it
is not more, I believe, than a hundred and twenty miles to
Pointdexter. If you will dictate a letter for him to take, I will
write i