Respecting the grief and anxiety into which the family were plunged, the midshipmen kept apart from them all the afternoon, only joining them at the evening meal at six o'clock.
As they withdrew, saying, in answer to the count's invitation that they should stop with them, that they were first going for a little walk, Jack whispered in Olga's ear, "Keep up your courage.

All may not be lost yet." The coachman was waiting for them in the stable, and they started at once in an opposite direction to that at which the meeting was to take place, in case Paul might by any possibility observe their departure.
Taking a long _detour_, they reached the cross-roads, and lay down under cover of the brushwood.

It was nearly half an hour later before they heard footsteps approaching along the road from the chateau.

On reaching the junction of the roads, the man stopped, and from their place of concealment they could dimly see his figure.
The boys had taken the precaution of abstracting a brace of pistols and two swords from the count's armory.

The coachman they knew would have his knife.