‘What hope could be for me, a nameless dependent!’ Raleigh cried out on him:-- ‘What hope? And she, with a hundred suitors, still unwed! Come, while there’s time! I’ll see her; contrive a meeting for thee, so sing thy praises, all her heart shall melt upon the past and flow in one stream of passion towards her olden lover.’ Brion shook his head; but there was a warmth come back to his cheeks and a light to his eyes. ‘Bring me but to speech with her: I’ll ask no more.’ ‘You’ll come, then?’ The boy broke into a shamefaced laugh. ‘It seems so.’ And thus was the surrender made. To London he had pledged himself, and now there was nothing for it but to secure his Uncle’s compliance. And that proved an easier matter than he had expected. It may have been that Bagott saw in this separation a temporary relief from that watchfulness which restricted his indulgences and embarrassed his secret devotions--for by now he was quite reverted to his former beliefs; or it may have been that he really wished his nephew to learn to take his independent place in the world, and so to shift any lingering responsibility for his welfare from his own shoulders. In any case he opposed no objection to the trip, but on the contrary expressed a desire to make it as full and pleasurable a one as possible, supplying the young man with ample funds for the occasion, and bidding him not hesitate to write for more should he come to need it. And so one day, a week later, it came to pass that Brion rode from the Grange, with the great soldier and his retinue for company, and Clerivault on a pack-horse jogging in his wake. It was the first time he had taken that road since he had lolled along it, a weary boy, eight years ago: and now, with what different feelings! His very heart sang; for he was on his way to see Joan. He could hardly believe in the reality of that stupendous prospect. CHAPTER XIX. MARKING TIME Brion put up at that same _Cock_ tavern in Westminster where he had slept on the first night of his journey westward. It was a well-served hostelry in a good locality, and it was within convenient call of his friend the Captain, who, by virtue of his appointment to the Queen’s Guard, had been allocated quarters in the royal palace of Whitehall, where her Majesty was now holding her Court. Moreover a certain tenderness of association inclined him to the place, whose reacquaintance, in the light of an enlarged vision, he was curious to make. It stood the test very agreeably, and proved as comfortable a headquarters for him and Clerivault as any more pretentious they might have chanced on.