coupes, dog-carts, and a
victoria.

"They say we ought not to miss this train," said Cecil, coming
from the stables and flourishing a whip; "they say the line may
be seized for government use exclusively in a few hours."

The old house-keeper, Madame Paillard, nodded and pointed to her
son, the under-keeper.

"Francois says, Monsieur Page, that six trains loaded with troops
passed through Saint-Lys between midnight and dawn; dis,
Francois, c'est le Sieur Bosz qui t'a renseigne--pas?"

"Oui, mamam!"

"Then hurry," said Lady Hesketh. "Thorald, call the others."

"I," said Cecil, "am going to drive Betty in the dog-cart."

"She'll probably take the reins," said Sir Thorald, cynically.

Cecil brandished his whip and looked determined; but it was Betty
who drove him to Saint-Lys station, after all.

The adieux were said, even more tearfully this time. Jack kissed
his sister tenderly, and she wept a little on his shoulder--thinking
of Rickerl.

One by one the vehicles rolled away down the gravel drive; and
last of all came Molly Hesketh in the coupe with Jack Marche.

Molly was sad and a trifle distraite. Those periodical mental
illuminations during which she discovered for the thousandth and odd
time that she loved her husband usually left her fairly innocuous.
But she was a born flirt; the virus was bred in the bone, and after
the first half-mile she opened her batteries--her eyes--as a matter
of course on Jack.

What she got for her pains was a little sermon ending, "See here,
Molly--three years ago you played the devil with me until I
kissed you, and then you were furious and threatened to tell Sir
Thorald. The truth is, you're in love with him, and there is no
more harm in you than there is in a china kitten."

"Jack!" she gasped.

"And," he resumed, "you live in Paris, and you see lots of things
and you hear lots of things that you don't hear and see in
Lincolnshire. But you're British, Molly, and you are domestic,
although you hate the idea, and there will never be a desolated
hearth in the Hesketh household as long as you speak your
mother-tongue and read Anthony Trollope."

The rest of the road was traversed in silence. They rattled over
the stones in the single street of Saint-Lys, rolled into the
gravel oval behind the Gare, and drew up amid a hubbub of
restless teams, market-wagons, and station-trucks.

"See the soldiers!" said Jack, lifting Lady Hesketh to the
platform, where the others wer