To go there now was to arrive at an unseemly hour, unkempt and weather-stained, before this uncle whom I had never seen.

My sensitive pride conjured up a picture of the scornful faces of his servants as they looked out upon this bedraggled wanderer from England slinking back to the castle which should have been his own.

No, I must seek shelter for the night, and then at my leisure, with as fair a show of appearances as possible, I must present myself before my relative.

Where then could I find a refuge from the storm?
You will ask me, doubtless, why I did not make for Etaples or Boulogne.
I answer that it was for the same reason which forced me to land secretly upon that forbidding coast.

The name of de Laval still headed the list of the proscribed, for my father had been a famous and energetic leader of the small but influential body of men who had remained true at all costs to the old order of things.