“I don’t want to go back.”

“I like to hear you say that.  I hear so much whining the other way!  Well, as a movement it’s over....  And the dead are dead, and the scarred and impoverished will have to pick themselves up.”

“Quite so.  Is there any immediate helping hand?”

“King Louis gives a pension.  It’s not much, but it keeps one from starving.  And as for you, I’ve in keeping a packet for you from England.  It reached me through Goodworth, the India merchant.  I’ve a notion that your family will manage to put in your hand some annual amount.  Of course your own fortune is sequestered and you can return neither to England nor to Scotland.”

“My aunt may have had faith that I was living.  She would do all that she could to help....  No, I’ll not go back.”

“Your chance would lie in some post here.  Take up old acquaintances where they have power, and recommend yourself to new ones with power.  Great ladies in especial,” said Warburton.

“We haven’t passed that by?”

“Not yet, Rullock, not yet!”

Ian dreamed over the fire.  At last he stretched his arms.  “Let us go sleep, Warburton!  I have come miles....”

“Yes, it is late.  Oh, one thing more!  Alexander Jardine is in Paris.”

“Alexander!”

“I don’t know what he is doing here.  In with the writing, studying crew, I suppose.  I came upon him by accident, near the Sorbonne.  He did not see me and I did not speak.”

“I’ll not avoid him!”

“I remember your telling me that you had quarreled.  That was the eve of your leaving Paris in the springtime, before the Prince went to Scotland.  You haven’t made it up?”

“No.  I suppose we’ll never make it up.”

“What was it over?”

“I can’t tell you that....  It had a double thread.  Did he come to Paris, I wonder, because he guessed that I would bring up here?” He rose and stood staring down into the fire.  “I think that he did so.  Well, if he means to follow me through the world, let him follow!  And now no more to-night, Warburton!  I want sleep—­sleep—­sleep!”

The next day and the next and the next began a new French life.  He had luck, or he had the large momentum of a personality not negligible, an orb covered with a fine network of enchanter’s symbols.  The packet from England held money, with an engagement to forward a like sum twice a year.  It was not a great sum, but such as it was he did not in the least scorn it.  It had come, after all, from Archibald Touris—­but Ian knew the influence behind that.