time--oh, it seemed so long, so
hopeless! Now I want to cry and laugh both at once."

"You have no fear of the journey before us?" Barrington whispered.

"Fear! With you!"

"I mean just because it is with me. Do you know what we are going to do?
We travel to the sea, to a ship, then to my home in Virginia. Are you
sure you do not fear the journey which means having me always with you?"

"Richard," she whispered, "you have never yet asked me to take that
journey. Won't you ask me now?"

"Jeanne, my darling, my wife to be, will you come?"

"If God wills, dearest--oh, so willingly, if God wills."

She remembered how far the sea was, how terribly near to Paris they yet
were. Disaster might be lying in wait for them along the road.

"He will keep us to the end, dear," Barrington whispered.

Presently she drew back from him. "How hateful I must look!" she
exclaimed. "Do I seem fit to be the wife of any man, let alone your
wife?"

"Shall I tell you what is in my mind?" he said.

"Yes, tell me, even if it hurts me."

"I am longing to see you again as I first saw you at Beauvais. I did not
know who you were, remember, but I loved you then."

"Even then?"

"Yes," he answered, "and ever since and forever-more."

A few minutes later Sabatier entered the room.

"It is time," he said. "We must start at once. Citizen Mercier goes no
farther. You are now three men under my command. Your names are as
before Roche and Pinot. Mademoiselle is called Morel, a desperate young
patriot, Monsieur Barrington. Do not forget that; only forget that she
is a woman."

They rode far that day, and after a few hours' rest, journeyed through
part of the night. The spirits of the fugitives rose as Paris was left
farther behind them, yet they were destined to be many days on the
journey, and to encounter dangers. Although they traveled as officers of
the Convention, Sabatier was careful to avoid the towns, and even
villages, as much as possible. If the suspicion of only one patriot were
aroused, their journey might end in disaster. Jeanne St. Clair rode as a
man, looked a man, but she looked very young for such work as they were
supposed to be engaged in, and there was a soft light in her eyes
sometimes which might set a keen observer wondering. Then, too, there
might be pursuit upon the road behind them. Some swift messenger,
keeping the direct road, which they could not always do, might pass
them, and carry a warning before them. The