Rosa replied that Anna had certainly started for Murano with Lady Wychcote and Bobby.
It seemed to Sophy that she saw it all now. Her mother-in-law, afraid of being traced too easily if she kept the boy with her, had left him somewhere with Anna until a few minutes before the train started. Anna was a clever, middle-aged Yorkshire woman who had been with her ladyship some twenty years. She could be trusted to hold her tongue and act intelligently in such a case. She was, oddly enough, devoted to her mistress, and would never have thought of questioning her commands, no matter how singular they might have appeared to her.
And yet—could Lady Wychcote really have dared to kidnap the boy—for it was nothing less than kidnapping if she had taken him away with her in that determined, secret fashion. But why? What excuse could she give? And had she really done it! And, if not, where was Bobby? Where was her little son at this late hour of the evening? She felt quite crazy and witless for a few moments. What to do? How to act? And time was going. If Bobby had really been stolen from her, then she must follow on the next train, if possible. But where? Where would that relentless old woman take him? If she (Sophy) went to Paris—she would have no further clue on reaching it. Lady Wychcote might go on to England; she might not. And why? Why?
Suddenly she knew. In a searing flash she knew just why it was that Lady Wychcote had taken the boy—and that she had surely taken him. She remembered that strange tone in her voice last night, when she had spoken with her after Amaldi had left. Yes—that was it! She had thought the worst of her late return in company with Amaldi. She would give that as her reason for taking away the boy—his mother's unfitness to be his guardian.
Something wild and potent sprang to life in her. She got to her feet. She looked like another woman. Now she was asking when the next through train left for Paris. At ten o'clock, they told her. It was now twenty-five minutes past nine. She might make it if she went straight to the station in the gown she wore, without stopping to get even a small travelling-bag. But no—she was not sure enough that that was the best thing to do. The through tickets that Lady Wychcote had bought to Paris might be only a blind. She must be very certain when she acted to act in the surest way. A favourite saying of Judge Macon's came into her mind. "Be sure you're right—then go ahead." Besides, Amaldi might be at the Rio San Vio by now. He would be sure to advise her in the sanest, most clear-sighted way. He was the very man to stand firm in a crisis, not to lose his head. Then, with a hot recoil of shame, she thought of what she must tell him. She had not yet taken in what all this might also mean to her and Amaldi. She could think only of Bobby, bewildered, unhappy, rushing away from her on the night express to Paris in company with the bitter old woman who had always hated her. She recalled the feeling of his strong little body as he had snuggled close to her last night. A fury of impotent love and rage shook her. The gondola seemed to crawl over the light-jewelled water of the canal, though Lorenzo and Mario were sending it along at racing speed. A gaily lighted barge filled with singers and musicians passed them.
As they turned into the little Rio, by the Palace of Don Carlos, another barge began burning Bengal lights. The dark, narrow water-way, with its crowding houses and little bridges, flared red before her as in some operatic scene. Why were things always so brutally ironical? Why should there be a festival in Venice on the night that her boy had been stolen from her?
When she reached her flat she found a wire from Amaldi, saying that he would take the train from Cortola to Venice, and be with her by ten o'clock. It was the quickest way that he could reach her. As she put down the telegram she heard his voice on the stair, speaking to Lorenzo. Then he came in alone. He took her in his arms, held her close a moment, then led her to a sofa, and sat down beside her, keeping her hands in his.
"Now tell me," he said.
She told him everything. As she spoke he kept muttering, "What infamy!... What infamy!..." He was as convinced as she was of the truth of her conjectures.
Her dark, tortured eyes made him wince with a double pain. It was only her son that she was thinking of in those moments, not of him, her lover—not of what this parting would mean to him and her. "What must I do?" she kept asking him. "What must I do next? Ought I to have tried to catch that ten o'clock train? Tell me, Marco ... for God's sake, tell me what I'd best do...."