"Baptiste,—where is he?" asked the countess.
Baptiste was in the garden.
"I am going out,—I will speak to him myself, and also institute further inquiries to satisfy our dear little Bertha; but I warn her that her dreams of a romantic adventure, and the flight of a young lady from an ancient château and her natural protectors, will probably meet with a sudden check by Madeleine's walking in from a long ramble."
Thus speaking, the count left Bertha to be consoled by his mother, and went forth in search of Baptiste. Count Tristan well knew that, although the domestics were all warmly attached to Madeleine, the devotion of Baptiste was unsurpassed. The count did not, for one instant, doubt that she had really gone. Some assistance she must have had, and Baptiste's was the aid she would naturally have selected. He chose to interrogate the old man himself, to prevent his giving rather than to extract information from him.
The simple-hearted gardener was not an adept in deception. He was digging among his flower-beds when his master approached him, and it did not escape the nobleman's observation that the spade went into the ground and was drawn out again with increased rapidity as he drew near, and that the head of Baptiste, instead of being lifted to see who was coming, was bent down as though he wished to appear wholly engrossed in his occupation.
"Baptiste?"
"Monsieur?"
The tremulous voice in which that one word was uttered, and his guilty countenance, scarcely raised as he spoke, were enough to convict him.
"Has Mademoiselle Madeleine passed you in walking out, this morning?"