“Dick, I do hate to leave you, you and Lucius.  I swept you into the peril, you two, my friends, and now I leave you in the thick of it to find a way out for yourselves.  But there is no remedy, is there?  I shall not rest until I see you both again.  Goodbye, Lucius.”  He looked at O’Toole sprawling with outstretched legs upon his groaning chair.  “My six feet four,” said he, turning to Gaydon; “you must give me the passport.  Have a good care of him, Dick;” and he gripped O’Toole affectionately by the arms for a second, and then taking the passport hurried from the room.  Gaydon had seldom seen Wogan so moved.

The berlin was brought round to the door; the Princess, rosy with sleep, stepped into it; Wogan had brought with him a muff, and he slipped it over Clementina’s feet to keep her warm during the night; Misset took Gaydon’s place, and the postillion cracked his whip and set off towards Trent.  Gaydon, sitting before the fire in the parlour, heard the wheels grate upon the road; he had a vision of the berlin thundering through the night with a trail of sparks from the wheels; and he wondered whether Misset was asleep or merely leaning back with his eyes shut, and thus visiting incognito Woman’s fairy-land of dreams.  However, Gaydon consoled himself with the reflection that it was none of his business.

CHAPTER XVII

But Gaydon was out of his reckoning.  There were no fairy tales told for Misset to overhear, and the Princess Clementina slept in her corner of the carriage.  If a jolt upon a stone wakened her, a movement opposite told her that her sentinel was watchful and alert.  Three times the berlin stopped for a change of horses; and on each occasion Wogan was out of the door and hurrying the ostlers before the wheels had ceased to revolve.

“You should sleep, my friend,” said she.

“Not till we reach Italy,” he replied; and with the confidence of a child she nestled warmly in her cloak again and closed her eyes.  This feeling of security was a new luxury to her after the months of anxiety and prison.  The grey light of the morning stole into the berlin and revealed to her the erect and tireless figure of her saviour.  The sun leaped down the mountain-peaks, and the grey of the light was now a sparkling gold.  Wogan bade her Highness look from the carriage window, and she could not restrain a cry of delight.  On her left, mountain-ridge rose behind mountain-ridge, away to the towering limestone cliffs of Monte Scanupia; on her right, the white peaks of the Orto d’Abram flashed to the sun; and between the hills the broad valley of the Adige rolled southwards,—­a summer country of villages and vines, of mulberry-trees and fields of maize, in the midst of which rose the belfries of an Italian town.

“This is Italy,” she cried.