“I remember it perfectly.  Turenne said a young officer, but I did not imagine that it could have been but a lad.  However, Captain Campbell, I will not detain you here talking, or you will begin by considering me to be a very bad nurse.  Directly I received the letter I ordered a chamber to be prepared for you.  By this time all will be in readiness, and a lackey ready to disrobe you and assist you to bed.”

“I do not need,” he began, but she held up her finger.

“Please to remember, sir, that I am head nurse here.  You will go to bed at once, and will take a light repast and a glass of generous wine.  After that our surgeon will examine you, and remove your bandages, which have been, I doubt not, somewhat disarranged on your journey; then he will say whether it will be advisable that you should keep your bed for a time, which will, I think, be far the best for you, for you will be much more comfortable so than on a couch, which, however good to be sat upon by those in health, affords but poor comfort to an invalid.  Have you brought a servant with you?”

“Yes, madam.  He is a very faithful lad, and accompanied me on that enterprise that you have been speaking of.  He is a merry fellow, and has proved himself a good and careful nurse.  He sat up with me for many nights when I was first hurt, and has ever since slept on the floor in my room.”

“I will give him in charge of my majordomo, who will see that he is well taken care of, and we can have a pallet laid for him at night on the floor of your room.”

She herself led the way to a very comfortable apartment where a fire was burning on the hearth; a lackey was already in waiting, and after a few kind words she left him.

“I have fallen into good hands indeed,” Hector said to himself.  “What would Sergeant MacIntosh say if he knew that I was lodged in a ducal palace, and that the duke and duchess had both spoken to me and seen after my comfort as if I had been a relation of their own?”

In spite of the care and attention that he received, Hector’s recovery was slow, and even when spring came the surgeon said that he was unfit for severe work.  However, the letters that he received from time to time from de Lisle and Chavigny consoled him, for not only had the winter passed without any incident save the capture of three or four towns by Turenne, but it was not at all likely that any events of great importance would take place.  All accounts represented the Spaniards as being engaged in adding to the strength of three or four towns in the duchy of Milan, so that evidently they intended to stand upon the defensive.

The palace of Sedan was the centre of a formidable conspiracy against Richelieu.  Messengers came and went, and Bouillon, Soissons, and the Archbishop of Rheims were constantly closeted together.  They had various allies at court, and believed that they should be able to overthrow the minister who had so long ruled over France in the name of the king.