“Richard,” she whispered, “you have never yet asked me to take that journey.  Won’t you ask me now?”

“Jeanne, my darling, my wife to be, will you come?”

“If God wills, dearest—­oh, so willingly, if God wills.”

She remembered how far the sea was, how terribly near to Paris they yet were.  Disaster might be lying in wait for them along the road.

“He will keep us to the end, dear,” Barrington whispered.

Presently she drew back from him.  “How hateful I must look!” she exclaimed.  “Do I seem fit to be the wife of any man, let alone your wife?”

“Shall I tell you what is in my mind?” he said.

“Yes, tell me, even if it hurts me.”

“I am longing to see you again as I first saw you at Beauvais.  I did not know who you were, remember, but I loved you then.”

“Even then?”

“Yes,” he answered, “and ever since and forever-more.”

A few minutes later Sabatier entered the room.

“It is time,” he said.  “We must start at once.  Citizen Mercier goes no farther.  You are now three men under my command.  Your names are as before Roche and Pinot.  Mademoiselle is called Morel, a desperate young patriot, Monsieur Barrington.  Do not forget that; only forget that she is a woman.”

They rode far that day, and after a few hours’ rest, journeyed through part of the night.  The spirits of the fugitives rose as Paris was left farther behind them, yet they were destined to be many days on the journey, and to encounter dangers.  Although they traveled as officers of the Convention, Sabatier was careful to avoid the towns, and even villages, as much as possible.  If the suspicion of only one patriot were aroused, their journey might end in disaster.  Jeanne St. Clair rode as a man, looked a man, but she looked very young for such work as they were supposed to be engaged in, and there was a soft light in her eyes sometimes which might set a keen observer wondering.  Then, too, there might be pursuit upon the road behind them.  Some swift messenger, keeping the direct road, which they could not always do, might pass them, and carry a warning before them.  There were many dangers, many possibilities.

One dawn—­they had ridden through the greater part of the night—­a climb which the horses took at walking pace brought them to the top of a down.  The world seemed stretched out before them in the light of the new day.

“That way lies Bordeaux,” said Sabatier, reining in his horse, and pointing to the left.  “Below us is the mouth of the Gironde, yonder the open sea.”

“Our journey is nearly at an end, then,” said Jeanne.

“I trust so.  A day or two’s delay, perhaps; I cannot tell.”

Toward evening they were lodged at an inn close to the shore, a deserted spot where they were unlikely to be disturbed.