Knowing full well that it could be weeks before she heard from either man, Jane left Mr. Gilman’s home with an inexpressibly oppressed spirit.

Despite Mr. Gilman’s prediction, Jane experienced no difficulty in arranging transportation back to Binché. This was due to the truth of his statement that everyone was fleeing town to Antwerp, Ghent, and Ostend, thus leaving the local carriages which travelled in the opposite direction quite vacant. Only two other people occupied the diligence that went to Binché: an old woman with a small pug on her lap, and a banker’s assistant. It was obvious from their sideways glances that they knew that she was British by her clothes, and both sat on the opposite side of the diligence from her.

They chatted with each other with great animation, pointedly ignoring Jane. The one travelled to see to her daughter’s lying in, the other to arrange to shut up his master’s banking house in Binché.

Jane could not resist the opening. ‘Is there danger, then?’

‘Madame!’ He affected shock. ‘Have you not heard that Napoleon is on the march?’

‘I had.’ Jane put her hand to her breast and let some of the strain she had felt show in her voice. ‘But you made me fear that there were troops close by.’

‘If you are fearful, then you ought to go home where you belong.’ The old woman snorted. ‘The British should let well enough alone, if you ask me.’

Jane coloured deeply at this and had no reply to offer. She turned her face to the glass and sat in silence for the rest of the trip.

The diligence set her down in front of A l’Aube d’un Hôtel, whence she walked back to the Chastain household. Would that the walk cleared her head, but Jane’s thoughts remained caught in a furious twirl of fruitless speculation. It seemed impossible that no one should know where the French troops were stationed. From what Mr. Gilman had said, they were not yet in Belgium, which made the question of where they had taken Vincent all the more perplexing.

Jane questioned her own judgement repeatedly as she walked. What could she do, alone, to rescue Vincent? Were she not better served to heed the advice of her friends and acquaintances and flee while there was a chance? Her nature, though, would not admit to that necessity without exhausting every other possibility. Once she saw Vincent and his situation, she would be better able to make a decision about what action to take.