Wogan took his hat to accompany Gaydon, but at that moment he heard
another man stumbling in a great haste up the stairs. Misset broke into
the room with a face as discomposed as Gaydon's had been.

"Here's another who has heard the same rumour," said Wogan.

"It is more than a rumour," said Misset. "It is an order, and most
peremptory, from the Court of France, forbidding any officer of Dillon's
regiment to be absent for more than twenty-four hours from his duties on
pain of being broke. Our secret's out. That's the plain truth of the
matter."

He stood by the table drumming with his fingers in a great agitation.
Then his fingers stopped. He had been drumming upon Wogan's sheet of
paper, and the writing on the sheet had suddenly attracted his notice.
It was writing in unusually regular lines. Gaydon, arrested by Misset's
change from restlessness to fixity, looked that way for a second, too,
but he turned his head aside very quickly. Wogan's handwriting was none
of his business.

"We will give them a month," said Wogan, who was conjecturing at the
motive of this order from the Court of France. "No doubt we are
suspected. I never had a hope that we should not be. The Court of
France, you see, can do no less than forbid us, but I should not be
surprised if it winks at us on the sly. We will give them a month.
Colonel Lally is a friend of mine and a friend of the King. We will get
an abatement of that order, so that not one of you shall be cashiered."