“Please, your honor, the babe is neither here nor there.”
“Hush, let us save the mother,” whispered Philip: then aloud: “What a bother about nothing! do you not know that the doctor took the child away with him?”
“The doctor?” repeated Andrea, with the suffering of doubt but also the joy of hope.
“Why, yes: you must be all lunatics here. Why, what do you think—that the young rogue walked off himself?” and he affected a merry laugh which the nurse and servant caught up.
“But if the doctor took it away, why am I here?” objected the nurse.
“Just so, because—why, he took it to your house. Run along back. This Marguerite sleeps so soundly she did not hear the doctor coming for it and taking it away.”
Andrea fell back, calm after the terrible shock.
Philip dismissed the nurse and sent home the servant. Taking a lantern he examined the next passage door which he found ajar, and on the snow of the garden he saw footprints of a man which went to the garden door.
“A man’s steps,” he cried, “the child has been stolen. Woe, woe!”
He passed a dreadful night. He knew his father so thoroughly that he believed he had committed the abduction, thinking the child was of royal origin. He might well attach great importance to the living proof of the King’s infidelity to Lady Dubarry. The baron would believe that Andrea would sooner or later enter again into favor, and be the principal means of his fortune.