The boy was sent for.
Edouard flung himself into the arms of his "big brother" with that passionate adoration he had for him.
After the first embraces were over, Roland inquired about the stoppage of the diligence.

Madame de Montrevel had been chary of mentioning it; Sir John had been sober in statement, but not so Edouard.

It was his Iliad, his very own.

He related it with every detail--Jerome's connivance with the bandits, the pistols loaded with powder only, his mother's fainting-fit, the attention paid to her by those who had caused it, his own name known to the bandits, the fall of the mask from the face of the one who was restoring his mother, his certainty that she must have seen the man's face.
Roland was above all struck with this last particular.

Then the boy related their audience with the First Consul, and told how the latter had kissed and petted him, and finally recommended him to the director of the Prytanee Francais.
Roland learned from the child all that he wished to know, and as it took but five minutes to go from the Rue Saint Jacques to the Luxembourg, he was at the palace in that time..