"If I could put twenty million continents between myself and Carcassonne I'd do it," he explained, with frantic gestures. "Don't you understand? The good Lord who is always on my side sent you especially to deliver me out of the hands of that unspeakable Xantippe. There are no four thousand francs. I'm not going to meet her train at Montpellier, and if she marries anyone to-morrow at Carcassonne it will not be Aristide Pujol." I shrugged my shoulders. "We'll go to Nîmes." "Very good, sir," said McKeogh. "And now," said I, as soon as we had started on the right-hand road, "will you have the kindness to explain?" "There's nothing to explain," he cried, gleefully. "Here am I delivered. I am free. I can breathe God's good air again. I'm not going to marry Yum-Yum, Yum-Yum. I feel ten years younger. Oh, I've had a narrow escape. But that's the way with me. I always fall on my feet. Didn't I tell you I've never lost an opportunity? The moment I saw an Englishman in difficulties, I realized my opportunity of being delivered out of the House of Bondage. I took it, and here I am! For two days I had been racking my brains for a means of getting out of Aigues-Mortes, when suddenly you--a _Deus ex machina_--a veritable god out of the machine--come to my aid. Don't say there isn't a Providence watching over me." I suggested that his mode of escape seemed somewhat elaborate and fantastic. Why couldn't he have slipped quietly round to the railway station and taken a ticket to any haven of refuge he might have fancied? "For the simple reason," said he, with a gay laugh, "that I haven't a single penny piece in the world." He looked so prosperous and untroubled that I stared incredulously. "Not one tiny bronze sou," said he. "You seem to take it pretty philosophically," said I. "_Les gueux, les gueux, sont des gens heureux_," he quoted. "You're the first person who has made me believe in the happiness of beggars." "In time I shall make you believe in lots of things," he retorted. "No. I hadn't one sou to buy a ticket, and Amélie never left me. I spent my last franc on the journey from Carcassonne to Aigues-Mortes. Amélie insisted on accompanying me. She was taking no chances. Her eyes never left me from the time we started. When I ran to your assistance she was watching me from a house on the other side of the _place_. She came to the hotel while we were lunching. I thought I would slip away unnoticed and join you after you had made the _tour des remparts_. But no. I must present her to my English friend. And then--_voyons_--didn't I tell you I never lost a visiting-card? Look at this?" He dived into his pocket, produced the letter-case, and extracted a card. "_Voilà._" I read: "The Duke of Wiltshire." "But, good heavens, man," I cried, "that's not the card I gave you." "I know it isn't," said he; "but it's the one I showed to Amélie." "How on earth," I asked, "did you come by the Duke of Wiltshire's visiting-card?"