She had long wondered whether it might not be possible to obtain leave for Denham to return home. Some few among the détenus had been permitted by the Emperor to do so, under exceptional circumstances. And Captain Ivor was a soldier. It was well known that, if Napoleon were chivalrous to anybody, he would be so first of all to a soldier. He was always harder upon civilians. At the Emperor’s Court an old friend of hers moved—one who had been formerly a Royalist, and who now for some years had attached himself to the fortunes of Buonaparte. Lucille had found it hard to pardon this change of front in her old friend—more strictly her parents’ friend—and intercourse between the two had been almost dropped. Yet Lucille had heard of him from time to time, and she knew that he was not one to forget the past, the more so in her case since that past included a heavy debt of gratitude from him to Lucille’s father. It had one day occurred to her that she might write to this friend, explaining about Captain Ivor’s failing health, and begging him to intercede with the Emperor for permission for Ivor to go home. Lucille did not tell Jack—it was not needful—how many days she had held out against this notion. Not for Denham’s sake, but for her own. He had been so long the main centre of thought in her quiet existence, that she could hardly now picture life at Verdun without him. Not that she was exactly in love with Ivor, because from the very beginning she had always known him to be Polly’s, and she had not permitted him to become to her what he might easily have become. But she was very much his friend. So she hesitated, till one day the selfishness of her own hesitation broke upon her, awakened by some fresh view of his altered looks. Then at once she acted. She wrote to the friend, putting the matter before him, frankly stating her own belief that Ivor was in point of fact slowly dying of captivity, and entreating him, in memory of old days, to interest himself in the matter, and, if possible, to get permission for Ivor’s return to England. The friend, whose name Lucille did not mention to Jack, had answered her letter. He had written kindly, cordially, promising to take an opportunity sooner or later to lay the matter before the Emperor. He might or might not meet with success; but, at least, Mademoiselle de St. Roques could depend upon him to do his best for her English friend.