‘Well, men with drags haven’t commonly much purpose,’ he said.

’But on this occasion!  At an Election time!  Surely, Nevil, you can guess at a reason.’

A second trumpet blew very martially.  Footmen came in search of Captain Beauchamp.  The alternative of breaking her pledged word to her father, or of letting Nevil be burlesqued in the sight of the town, could no longer be dallied with.

Cecilia said, ‘Well, Nevil, then you shall hear it.’

Hereupon Captain Baskelett’s groom informed Captain Beauchamp that he was off.

‘Yes,’ Nevil said to Cecilia, ‘tell me on board the yacht.’

’Nevil, you will be driving into the town with the second Tory candidate of the borough.’

‘Which? who?’ Nevil ’asked.

‘Your cousin Cecil.’

‘Tell Captain Baskelett that I don’t drive down till an hour later,’ Nevil said to the groom.  ’Cecilia, you’re my friend; I wish you were more.  I wish we didn’t differ.  I shall hope to change you—­make you come half-way out of that citadel of yours.  This is my uncle Everard!  I might have made sure there’d be a blow from him!  And Cecil! of all men for a politician!  Cecilia, think of it!  Cecil Baskelett!  I beg Seymour Austin’s pardon for having suspected him . . .’

Now sounded Captain Baskelett’s trumpet.

Angry though he was, Beauchamp laughed.  ’Isn’t it exactly like the baron to spring a mine of this kind?’

There was decidedly humour in the plot, and it was a lusty quarterstaff blow into the bargain.  Beauchamp’s head rang with it.  He could not conceal the stunning effect it had on him.  Gratitude and tenderness toward Cecilia for saving him, at the cost of a partial breach of faith that he quite understood, from the scandal of the public entry into Bevisham on the Tory coach-box, alternated with his interjections regarding his uncle Everard.

At eleven, Cecilia sat in her pony-carriage giving final directions to Mrs. Devereux where to look out for the Esperanza and the schooner’s boat.  ‘Then I drive down alone,’ Mrs. Devereux said.

The gentlemen were all off, and every available maid with them on the coach-boxes, a brilliant sight that had been missed by Nevil and Cecilia.

‘Why, here’s Lydiard!’ said Nevil, supposing that Lydiard must be approaching him with tidings of the second Tory candidate.  But Lydiard knew nothing of it.  He was the bearer of a letter on foreign paper—­ marked urgent, in Rosamund’s hand—­and similarly worded in the well-known hand which had inscribed the original address of the letter to Steynham.

Beauchamp opened it and read: 

                              Chateau Tourdestelle
                                        ’(Eure).

’Come.  I give you three days—­no more.

‘Renee.’

The brevity was horrible.  Did it spring from childish imperiousness or tragic peril?