Lorraine, A Romance

Jack looked at the helmet. Tricasse ripped up the mail-sack with his long clasp-knife. "They stole our mail; they will not steal it again," observed Tricasse, sorting the letters and shuffling them like cards.

One by one he looked them over, sorted out two, stuffed the rest into the breast of his sheepskin coat, and stood up.

"There are two letters for you, Monsieur Marche, that were going to be read by the Prussian police officials," he said, holding the letters out. "What do you think of our new system of mail delivery? German delivery, franc-tireur facteur, eh, Monsieur Marche?"

"Give me the letters," said Jack, quietly.

He sat down and read them both, again and again. Tricasse turned his back, and stirred the Bavarian helmet with his boot-toe; the franc-tireur gathered up his spoils, and, at a gesture from Tricasse, carried them down the slope towards the hidden camp.

"Put out the fire, too," called Tricasse, softly. "I begin to smell it."

When Jack had finished his reading, he looked up at Tricasse, folding the letters and placing them in his breast, where the flat steel box was.

"Letters from Paris," he said. "The Uhlans have appeared in the Eure-et-Seine and at Melun. They are arming the forts and enceinte, and the city is being provisioned for a siege."

"Paris!" blurted out Tricasse, aghast.

Jack nodded, silently.

After a moment he resumed: "The Emperor is said to be with the army near Mézières on the south bank of the Meuse. We are going to find him, Mademoiselle de Nesville and I. Tell us what to do."

Tricasse stared at him, incapable of speech.

"Very well," said Jack, gently, "think it over. Tell me, at least, how we can avoid the German lines. We must start this evening."

He turned and descended the bank rapidly, letting himself down by the trunks of the birch saplings, treading softly and cautiously over stones and dead leaves, for the road was so near that a careless footstep might perhaps be heard by passing Uhlans. In a few minutes he crossed the ridge, and descended into the hollow, where the odour of the extinguished fire lingered in the air.

Lorraine was sitting quietly in the cave; Jack entered and sat down on the blankets beside her.

"The franc-tireurs captured a mail-sack just now," he said. "In it were two letters for me; one from my sister Dorothy, and the other from Lady Hesketh. Dorothy writes in alarm, because my uncle and aunt arrived without me. They also are frightened because they have heard that Morteyn was again threatened. The Uhlans have been seen in neighbouring departments, and the city is preparing for a siege. My uncle will not allow his wife or Dorothy or Betty Castlemaine to stay in Paris, so they are all going to Brussels, and expect me to join them there. They know nothing of what has happened at your home or at Morteyn; they need not know it until we meet them. Listen, Lorraine: it is my duty to find the Emperor and deliver this box to him; but you must not go--it is not necessary. So I am going to get you to Brussels somehow, and from there I can pass on about my duty with a free heart."