concluded his
urgent appeal he rose from his knees and stood before the King and
Queen, glancing anxiously from one to the other. His face expressed so
much earnestness and enthusiasm that their Majesties could not help but
be impressed.

"And our engagements with our cousin of Austria?" said the Queen, after
an instant's silence, "for I will not conceal from you, Monsieur, that
since Varennes I have no hope save in our allies."

"Were it not better that you should depend for your safety on your own
subjects, Madame?" asked Calvert.

The King agreed with him and said so at once, but it was with reluctance
that the Queen gave her consent to the enterprise.

"It is a noble plan and a hazardous one, and we thank you, Monsieur, and
those other gentlemen who are imperilling their lives to insure our
safety, but I confess to you," said her Majesty, sadly, "that I sanction
the undertaking and enter into it, not in the hope that the first part
of it will succeed--alas! I distrust our generals and troops too deeply
for that--but in the belief that once out of Paris we may ultimately be
able to take refuge with our friends beyond the frontier."

As she spoke, there came a hurried tapping at the door, and, almost
before permission to enter had been given, Beaufort appeared. He signed
hastily to Calvert to depart, and on a silent gesture of dismissal from
the King and Queen, he followed the young nobleman from the room through
a door opposite to the one by which he had been admitted. Hurrying past
endless antechambers, down marble stairways, and through long corridors,
Calvert at length found himself at a little gate which gave upon the
Carrousel. This Beaufort unlocked and, giving the password to the Swiss
sentry who stood without, the two young men at length found themselves
on the Quai des Tuileries. There, after a moment's hurried conversation,
during which Calvert told Beaufort of the result of the momentous
interview with the King and Queen, the two parted, the young Frenchman
returning to the palace and Calvert making his way as quickly as
possible back to the Legation, where Mr. Morris anxiously awaited him.

CHAPTER XXII

MR. CALVERT STARTS ON A JOURNEY

The Queen's consent having been obtained, Calvert set out upon his
journey to the frontier the next day. He would have carried a lighter
heart had he felt better assured of the good faith of the King and
Queen. Louis had given his consent readily enough an