He picked up carefully the scraps of the letter and placed them in the
middle of the fire. They were hardly burnt before Gaydon came into the
room with word that horses were already being harnessed to the berlin.
Wogan explained their predicament.
"We must choose which of us three shall stay behind," said he.
"Which of us two," Misset corrected, pointing to Gaydon and himself.
"When the Princess drives into Bologna, Charles Wogan, who first had the
high heart to dare this exploit, the brain to plot, the hand to execute
it,--Charles Wogan must ride at her side, not Misset, not Gaydon. I take
no man's honours." He shook Wogan by the hand as he spoke, and he had
spoken with an extraordinary warmth of admiration. Gaydon could do no
less than follow his companion's example, though there was a shade of
embarrassment in his manner of assenting. It was not that he had any
envy of Wogan, or any desire to rob him of a single tittle of his due
credit. There was nothing mean in Gaydon's nature, but here was a
halving of Clementina's protectors, and he could not stifle a suspicion
that the best man of the four to leave behind was really Charles Wogan
himself. Not a word, however, of this could he say, and so he nodded his
assent to Misset's proposal.
"It is I, then, who stay behind with O'Toole and the courier," he said.
"Misset has a wife; the lot evidently falls to me. We will make a shift
somehow or another to keep the fellow quiet till sundown to-morrow,
which time should see you out of danger." He unbuckled the sword from
his waist and laid it on the table, and that simple action somehow
touched Wogan to the heart. He slipped his arm into Gaydon's and said
remorsefully,-"Dick, I do hate to leave you, you and Lucius. I swept you into the
peril, you two, my friends, and now I leave you in the thick of it to
find a way out for yourselves. But there is no remedy, is there? I shall
not rest until I see you both again. Goodbye, Lucius." He looked at
O'Toole sprawling with outstretched legs upon his groaning chair. "My
six feet four," said he, turning to Gaydon; "you must give me the
passport. Have a good care of him, Dick;" and he gripped O'Toole
affectionately by the arms for a second, and then taking the passport
hurried from the room. Gaydon had seldom seen Wogan so moved.