"I will set out with you this very morning, if you wish, as I am on
leave. What! To hasten to the release of Capitola's mother, I would set
out at midnight and ride straight on for a week!"
"Ah! there is no need of such extravagant feats of travel. It is now
ten o'clock; if we start within an hour we can reach the 'Calm Retreat'
by eleven o'clock to-night."
"En avant, then," exclaimed Herbert, rising and ringing the bell.
Traverse ordered horses, and in twenty minutes the friends were on the
road to East Feliciana.
They reached the "Calm Retreat" so late that night that there was none
but the porter awake to admit them.
Traverse took his friend up to his own dormitory, saying, laughingly: "It is an unappreciable distance of time since you and I occupied the
same bed, Herbert."
"Yes; but it is not the first, by five hundred times. Do you remember,
Traverse, the low attic where we used to sleep, and how on stormy
nights we used to listen to the rain pattering on the roof, within two
or three inches of our faces, and how we used to be half afraid to turn
over for fear that we should bump our heads against the timbers of the
ceiling?"
"Yes, indeed," said Traverse.
And thereupon the two friends launched into a discussion of old times,
when the two widows and their sons lived together--the two women
occupying one bed, and the two boys the other. And this discussion they
kept up until long after they retired, and until sleep overtook them.
The next morning Traverse conducted his friend down to the breakfast
parlor, to introduce him to Doctor St. Jean, who, as soon as he
perceived his young medical assistant, sprang forward exclaiming: "Grand ciel! Is this then you? Have you then returned? What for did you
run away with my horse?"
"I went to New Orleans in great haste, upon very important business,
sir."
"Grand Dieu! I should think so, when you ride off on my horse without
saying a word. If it had been my ambling pony I should have been in
despair, I! Your business so hasty and so important was accomplished, I
hope."
"Yes; I did my errand with less trouble than I had anticipated, owing
to the happy circumstance of meeting my friend here, who has come down
hither connected with the same business."
"Ah! vera happy to see your friend. In the medical profession, I
suppose?"