“Little Mademoiselle, you are ready to do brave things, but I am asking you now to do one that will be bravest of all. Champar, the coach driver, who is my friend, is risking much to save you all.” Dian looked off at the still, dim vistas of the wood as he spoke. The noise of the city, the harsh yelling and the rumble of carts, came to them clearly from the near-by street. Dian put it so, saying that Champar was doing all this for them out of the kindness of his heart. He did not say that he had done the coach driver a service once which was so great that it had meant life itself to him. “Tell me what it is, Dian. I don’t know if I am brave. I’m not sure. But for maman I could do it. Shall we not go soon to Great-aunt Hortense’s house so that I can see maman?” said Marie Josephine. She could think of nothing else but that she was to see her mother and aid in saving her. She tried to realize that her great-aunt’s house was really her mother’s prison, but it only seemed like a bad dream. She could not believe that the dim, stately house, where they had so often gone for chocolate on winter afternoons, could now be a place from which to flee, an enemy’s stronghold. She looked confidently at Dian, and the trust that had always come to her when with him, steadied her now. “Tell me, Dian, what is it I shall do?” “A week from to-day, if all goes well, you and the others will be with your mother in, or rather near, Calais. Your sister, the governess, the Du Monde and Proté are there now. I saw Champar this morning and he told me where to find them. I hope that a fishing schooner will take you all to England. I spoke to your mother through the door for a moment this morning. She has been told that her children are to join her in Calais, and she thinks that you are already on your way. Henri has given her that impression. He has given her, for a disguise, the clothes of his sister who was to have gone to a cousin in the country, and for whom he has procured a passport. She is not able to leave, and your mother will go in her stead. Her passport is in order. When she leaves you at the garden gate she is to go at once to the Place de la Bastille and has orders what else to do. Little Mademoiselle, this is hard—she must not know that it is her own Marie Josephine who is saving her! Safety for you all lies in her not knowing this, for she would not leave the city if she thought that one of you were here!”