"I know. With all my heart I thank her. With all my heart I pity her."
"But there is one thing your Highness does not know. She runs our
risks,--the risk of capture, the risk of the night, the storm, the snow,
she a woman by nature timid and frail,--yet with never in all her life
so great a reason for timidity, or so much frailty of health as now. We
venture our lives, but she ventures more."
The mother bowed her head; Clementina looked fixedly at Wogan.
"Speak plainly, my friend," she said. "There are no children here."
"Madam, I need but quote to you the words her husband used. For my part,
I think that nobler words were never spoken, and with her whole heart
she repeats them. They are these: 'The boy would only live to serve his
King; why should he not serve his King before he lives?'"
The mother was still silent, but Wogan could see that the tears
overbrimmed her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Clementina was silent
for a while too, and stood with her eyes fixed thoughtfully on Wogan.
Then she said gently,-"Her name."
Wogan told her it, and she said no more; but it was plain that she would
never forget it, that she had written it upon her heart.
Wogan waited, looking to the Princess, who drying her tears rose from
her chair and said with great and unexpected dignity,-"How comes it, sir, that with such servants your King still does not sit
upon his throne? My daughter shall not fall below the great example set
to her. My fears are shamed by it. My daughter goes with you to-night."
It was time that she consented, for even as Wogan flung himself upon his
knee and raised her hand, M. Chateaudoux appeared at the door with a
finger on his lips, and behind him one could hear a voice grumbling and
cursing on the stairs.
"Jenny," said Wogan, and Jenny stumbled into the room. "Quiet," said he;
"you will wake the house."
"Well, if you had to walk upstairs in the dark in these horrible
shoes--"
"Oh, Jenny, your cloak, quick!"
"Take the thing! A good riddance to it; it's dripping wet, and weighs a
ton."
"Dripping wet!" moaned the mother.
"I shall not wear it long," said Clementina, advancing from the
embrasure of the window. Jenny turned and looked her over critically
from head to foot. Then she turned away without a word and let the cloak
fall to the ground. It fell about her feet; she kicked it viciously
away, and at the same time she kicked off one of those shoes of which
she so much complained. Jenny was never the woman to mince her language,
and to-night she was in her surliest mood. So she swore simply and
heartily, to the mother's utter astonishment and indignation.