came the voice of my beloved Gouverneur, which
made the heart of that anguished Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye,
beat into a sudden great happiness though also alarm.

"Yes, Your Excellency."

"Can you dress very quietly, get your car and come up here to the
Mansion without letting anybody know of it?"

"I will do what you command."

"I need you, boy, and I need you quick."

"I come."

"Stop the car at the street beyond the side door and come in that way.
Cato will let you in. Come to my bedroom quietly so as not to wake
Jenkins. Can you find your way?"

For just one single long second that _grande dame_, Roberta, the
Marquise of Grez and Bye, cowered in fear upon her warm bed in the
house of her Uncle, the General Robert, at the thought of going out
into the night at the command of a man, and then that devoted
daredevil, Mr. Robert Carruthers, answered into the telephone to the
Gouverneur Faulkner:

"Immediately I come to you."

CHAPTER XVII

THE TALL TIMBERS OF OLD HARPETH

Is it that there comes to the world an hour in the twenty and four in
which it lays aside the mortality of the earth and clothes itself in
an immortality of a very great awe? I think that it is so; and it was
out into the whiteness of that hour that I stepped when I had
successfully passed from my room to the garden of the home of my
Uncle, the General Robert, which is also the home of my American
ancestors. A command for my presence had come to me from the loved
Gouverneur Faulkner and it was needful that I make all possible haste;
but it seemed to me that all of the beautiful faded flowers of my dead
grandmammas in that garden rose up around me for beguilement and gave
to me a perfume that they had kept in saving for the Roberta, some day
to come across the waters to them. And all of their little
descendants, the opening blossoms of spring, also gave perfume to me
in a mist in the white moonlight, while a few fragrant rose vines bent
to detain me as I left that home of my grandmothers to go out into
that sleeping city, alone. I had a great fear, but yet a great
devotion drew me and in a very few minutes I had driven my Cherry from
the garage and was on my way through the silent streets to--I did not
know what.

At the door of the Mansion I was admitted by my good Cato, who was
attired in a very long red flannel sleeping garment, with a red cap
also of the flannel tied down upon the white wool of his head.

"Has you go