“I will go to her, Madame!” he said, springing to his feet.  “I will go to her.  I—­I was wrong.”

She rose, too, he still clinging to her hand, she still unresisting.  His eye fell upon me.

“Where is my hat, Davy?” he asked.

The Vicomtesse withdrew her hand and looked at me.

“Alas, it is not quite so simple as that, Mr. Temple,” she said; “Monsieur de Carondelet has first to be reckoned with.”

“She is dying, you say? then I will go to her.  After that Monsieur de Carondelet may throw me into prison, may hang me, may do anything he chooses.  But I will go to her.”

I glanced anxiously at the Vicomtesse, well knowing how wilful he was when aroused.  Admiration was in her eyes, seeing that he was heedless of his own danger.

“You would not get through the gates of the city.  Monsieur le Baron requires passports now,” she said.

At that he began to pace the little room, his hands clenched.

“I could use your passport, Davy,” he cried.  “Let me have it.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Temple, I do not think you could,” said the Vicomtesse.  I flushed.  I suppose the remark was not to be resisted.

“Then I will go to-night,” he said, with determination.  “It will be no trouble to steal into the city.  You say the house has yellow and red tiles, and is near the Rue St. Philippe?”

Helene laid her fingers on his arm.

“Listen, Monsieur, there is a better way,” she said.  “Monsieur le Baron is doubtless very angry with you, and I am sure that this is chiefly because he does not know you.  For instance, if some one were to tell him that you are a straightforward, courageous young man, a gentleman with an unquenchable taste for danger, that you are not a low-born adventurer and intriguer, that you have nothing in particular against his government, he might not be quite so angry.  Pardon me if I say that he is not disposed to take your expedition any more seriously than is your own Federal government.  The little Baron is irascible, choleric, stern, or else good-natured, good-hearted, and charitable, just as one happens to take him.  As we say in France, it is not well to strike flint and steel in his presence.  He might blow up and destroy one.  Suppose some one were to go to Monsieur de Carondelet and tell him what a really estimable person you are, and assure him that you will go quietly out of his province at the first opportunity, and be good, so far as he is concerned, forever after?  Mark me, I merely say suppose.  I do not know how far things have gone, or what he may have heard.  But suppose a person whom I have reason to believe he likes and trusts and respects, a person who understands his vagaries, should go to him on such an errand.”

“And where is such a person to be found,” said Nick, amused in spite of himself.

Madame la Vicomtesse courtesied.

“Monsieur, she is before you,” she said.