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Updated: June 27, 2025
"I had last night, but I made a spill of it to light my pipe. There were six men against me. Had that been found on my dead body, why, there was proof positive of our attempt, and the attempt foiled by sure safeguards. As it is, if we lie still a little while, their fears will cease and the rumour become discredited." Misset leaned across Gaydon's arm and scanned the letter.
"It is very well I have this letter," said he, "for until it came I had no scrap of writing whatever to show either to her Highness or, what I take to be more important, to her Highness's mother," and he went back to his poetry. Misset and his wife, on the other hand, drove forward to the town of Colmar, where they bought a travelling carriage and the necessaries for the journey.
Misset descended and supped in company with Gaydon and Wogan, while Misset and O'Toole waited upon them as servants. It was a silent sort of supper, very different from the meal they had made that morning. For though the fare was better, it lacked the exhilaration. This delay weighed heavily upon them all.
Misset uttered a cry; Wogan clasped the Princess to his breast. Her head fell back across his arm, pale as death; her eyes were closed; her bosom, strained against his, neither rose nor fell. "She has fasted all Lent," he said in a broken voice. "She has eaten nothing since we left Innspruck." Mrs. Misset burst into tears; she caught Clementina's hand and clasped it; she had no eyes but for her.
"As soon as I obtained the King's permission," replied Wogan, "I hurried to Innspruck. There I saw Chateaudoux, the chamberlain of the Princess's mother. Here is a letter he dropped in the cathedral for me to pick up." He drew the letter from his fob and handed it to Gaydon. Gaydon read it and handed it to Misset.
Wogan took a slip of paper from his pocket and gave it to the Prince. "On that slip," said he, "I wrote down the names of all the friends whom I could trust, and by the side of the names the places where I could lay my hands upon them. One after the other I erased the names until only three remained." The Prince nodded and read out the names. "Gaydon, Misset, O'Toole. They are good men?"
There was more of the primitive woman in this girl bred in the rugged country-side of Silesia than even Wogan was aware of, and during the halts in their journey she had learned from Mrs. Misset details which Wogan had been at pains to conceal. It was Wogan who had conceived the idea of her rescue in the King's place. In the King's place, Wogan had come to Innspruck and effected it.
Misset nodded and handed it to O'Toole, who read it four times and handed it back to Gaydon with a flourish of the hand as though the matter was now quite plain to him. "Chateaudoux has a sweetheart," said he, sententiously. "Very good; I do not think the worse of him." Gaydon glanced a second time through the letter. "The Princess says that you must have the Prince Sobieski's written consent."
Wogan could see that the face was grave and anxious. "Your Highness and Mrs. Misset can ride in the cart. It has no springs, to be sure, and may shake to pieces like plaster. But if it carries you five miles, it will serve. Misset and I can run by the side." "But Lucy Misset must not go," said Clementina. "She is ill, and no wonder. She must not take one step more to-night.
Wogan told them of his first meeting with Lady Featherstone on the Florence road, but he knew no more about her, and not one of the three knew anything at all. "So the secret's out," said Gaydon. "But you outstripped it." "Barely," said Wogan. "Forty miles away I had last night to fight for my life." "But you have the Prince's written consent?" said Misset.
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