After an unusually quick passage across the Channel, the travelers landed on the French coast, before the defeated spy had returned from London to Dartford by stage-coach. Continuing their journey by post as far as Amiens, they reached that city in time to take their places by the diligence to Paris.
Arrived in Paris, they encountered another incomprehensible proceeding on the part of Captain Bervie.
Among the persons assembled in the yard to see the arrival of the diligence was a man with a morsel of paper in his hand, evidently on the lookout for some person whom he expected to discover among the travelers. After consulting his bit of paper, he looked with steady attention at Percy and Mr. Bowmore, and suddenly approached them. 'If you wish to see the Captain,' he said, in broken English, 'you will find him at that hotel.' He handed a printed card to Percy, and disappeared among the crowd before it was possible to question him.
Even Mr. Bowmore gave way to human weakness, and condescended to feel astonished in the face of such an event as this. 'What next?' he exclaimed.
'Wait till we get to the hotel,' said Percy.
In half an hour more the landlord had received them, and the waiter had led them to the right door. Percy pushed the man aside, and burst into the room.
Captain Bervie was alone, reading a newspaper. Before the first furious words had escaped Percy's lips, Bervie silenced him by pointing to a closed door on the right of the fireplace.
'She is in that room,' he said; 'speak quietly, or you may frighten her. I know what you are going to say,' he added, as Percy stepped nearer to him. 'Will you hear me in my own defense, and then decide whether I am the greatest scoundrel living, or the best friend you ever had?'
He put the question kindly, with something that was at once grave and tender in his look and manner. The extraordinary composure with which he acted and spoke had its tranquilizing influence over Percy. He felt himself surprised into giving Bervie a hearing.
'I will tell you first what I have done,' the Captain proceeded, 'and next why I did it. I have taken it on myself, Mr. Linwood, to make an alteration in your wedding arrangements. Instead of being married at Dartford church, you will be married (if you see no objection) at the chapel of the embassy in Paris, by my old college friend the chaplain.'
This was too much for Percy's self-control. 'Your audacity is beyond belief,' he broke out.
'And beyond endurance,' Mr. Bowmore added. 'Understand this, sir! Whatever your defense may be, I object, under any circumstances, to be made the victim of a trick.'
'You are the victim of your own obstinate refusal to profit by a plain warning,' Bervie rejoined. 'At the eleventh hour, I entreated you, and I entreated Mr. Linwood, to provide for your own safety; and I spoke in vain.'
Percy's patience gave way once more.
'To use your own language,' he said, 'I have still to decide whether you have behaved toward me like a scoundrel or a friend. You have said nothing to justify yourself yet.'
'Very well put!' Mr. Bowmore chimed in. 'Come to the point, sir! My daughter's reputation is in question.'
'Miss Bowmore's reputation is not in question for a single instant,' Bervie answered. 'My sister has been the companion of her journey from first to last.'
'Journey?' Mr. Bowmore repeated, indignantly. 'I want to know, sir, what the journey means. As an outraged father, I ask one plain question. Why did you run away with my daughter?'
Bervie took a slip of paper from his pocket, and handed it to Percy with a smile.
It was a copy of the warrant which Justice Bervie's duty had compelled him to issue for the 'arrest of Orlando Bowmore and Percy Linwood.' There was no danger in divulging the secret now. British warrants were waste-paper in France, in those days.
'I ran away with the bride,' Bervie said coolly, 'in the certain knowledge that you and Mr. Bowmore would run after me. If I had not forced you both to follow me out of England on the first of April, you would have been made State prisoners on the second. What do you say to my conduct now?'
'Wait, Percy, before you answer him,' Mr. Bowmore interposed. 'He is ready enough at excusing himself. But, observe—he hasn't a word to say in justification of my daughter's readiness to run away with him.'
'Have you quite done?' Bervie asked, as quietly as ever.
Mr. Bowmore reserved the right of all others which he most prized, the right of using his tongue. 'For the present,' he answered in his loftiest manner, 'I have done.'
Bervie proceeded: 'Your daughter consented to run away with me, because I took her to my father's house, and prevailed upon him to trust her with the secret of the coming arrests. She had no choice left but to let her obstinate father and her misguided lover go to prison—or to take her place with my sister and me in the traveling-carriage.' He appealed once more to Percy. 'My friend, you remember the day when you spared my life. Have I remembered it, too?'
For once, there was an Englishman who was not contented to express the noblest emotions that humanity can feel by the commonplace ceremony of shaking hands. Percy's heart overflowed. In an outburst of unutterable gratitude he threw himself on Bervie's breast. As brothers the two men embraced. As brothers they loved and trusted one another, from that day forth.
The door on the right was softly opened from within. A charming face—the dark eyes bright with happy tears, the rosy lips just opening into a smile—peeped into the room. A low sweet voice, with an under-note of trembling in it, made this modest protest, in the form of an inquiry:
'When you have quite done, Percy, with our good friend, perhaps you will have something to say to ME?'
LAST WORDS.
THE persons immediately interested in the marriage of Percy and Charlotte were the only persons present at the ceremony.
At the little breakfast afterward, in the French hotel, Mr. Bowmore insisted on making a speech to a select audience of six; namely, the bride and bridegroom, the bridesmaid, the Chaplain, the Captain, and Mrs. Bowmore.
