"Here is a pretext!" cried Sir Henry, rising in his turn. "The coterie of our fair compatriots decides everything here. Miss Ellis and her sister Anna are the most influential powers in the council of Amazons. We must induce Margaret to postpone this excursion, which is fixed for to-morrow, for one more day. A day here is a good deal, I know; but we must obtain it, allege some serious reason for our inability to go, and start to-night for Saint-Sauveur. We shall arrive there in the afternoon; we will rest until evening; at nine o'clock, while you are together, I will have the horses saddled, and at ten o'clock--I fancy that you won't need more than an hour to exchange two packages of letters--we will mount and ride all night, reach here at sunrise, and find the fair Margaret caracoling on her noble steed, my pretty little Madame Bernos curvetting on my Yorkshire; we will change boots and horses; and, covered with dust, dead with fatigue, consumed with love, pale and interesting, we will attend our Dulcineas over mountains and valleys. If so much zeal is not rewarded, all women must be hanged as an example. Come, are you ready?" Lionel, overflowing with gratitude, threw himself into Henry's arms. An hour later the latter returned. "Let us be off," he said, "everything is arranged; the Luchon excursion is postponed till the 16th; but it was hard work. Miss Ellis had some suspicions. She knows that my cousin is at Saint-Sauveur, and she has a terrible aversion for my cousin, because she knows what a fool you made of yourself for her. But I adroitly turned aside her suspicions; I said that you were horribly ill, and that I had just forced you to go to bed----" "Great Heaven! a new freak to help to ruin my chances!" "No, no, not at all! Dick will put a night-cap on your bolster, place it in your bed, and order three pints of herb-tea from the maid-servant. Then he will put the key of the room in his pocket, and take up his position in front of the door, with a long face and mournful eyes; and he has orders not to let any one in and to murder whoever attempts to force a passage, though it were Miss Margaret herself. Ah! here he is already making up your bed. Good! he has an excellent face; he wants to look sad and he looks idiotic. Let us go out by the gate leading into the ravine. Jack will bring our horses to the end of the valley, as if he were exercising them, and we will join him at Lonnio Bridge. Come, forward, and may the god of love protect us!"