Lord Tony drew himself up, and staring vacantly into the fire told his friend the events of the past four days. On Wednesday the courier with M. de Kernogan's letter, breathing kindness and forgiveness. On Thursday his arrival and seeming ill-health, on Friday his departure with Yvonne. Tony spoke quite calmly. He had never been anything but calm since first, in the house in Laura Place, he had received that awful blow.
"I ought to have known," he concluded dully, "I ought to have guessed. Especially since you warned me."
"I warned you that Martin-Roget was not the man he pretended to be," said Blakeney gently, "I warned you against him. But I too failed to suspect the duc de Kernogan. We are Britishers, you and I, my dear Tony," he added with a quaint little laugh, "our minds will never be quite equal to the tortuous ways of these Latin races. But we are not going to waste time now talking about the past. We have got to find your wife before those brutes have time to wreak their devilries against her."
"On the high seas ... on the way to Holland ... thence to Coblentz ..." murmured Tony, "I have not yet shown you the duc's letter to me."
He drew from his pocket the crumpled, damp piece of paper on which the ink had run into patches and blotches, and which had become almost undecipherable now. Sir Percy took it from him and read it through:
"The duc de Kernogan and Lady Anthony Dewhurst are not on their way to Holland and to Coblentz," he said quietly as he handed the letter back to Lord Tony.
"Not on their way to Holland?" queried the young man with a puzzled frown. "What do you mean?"
Blakeney drew his chair closer to his friend: a marvellous and subtle change had suddenly taken place in his individuality. Only a few moments ago he was the polished, elegant man of the world, then the kindly and understanding friend—self-contained, reserved, with a perfect manner redolent of sympathy and dignity. Suddenly all that was changed. His manner was still perfect and outwardly calm, his gestures scarce, his speech deliberate, but the compelling power of the leader—which is the birth-right of such men—glowed and sparkled now in his deep-set eyes: the spirit of adventure and reckless daring was awake—insistent and rampant—and subtle effluvia of enthusiasm and audacity emanated from his entire personality.
Sir Percy Blakeney had sunk his individuality in that of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
"I mean," he said, returning his friend's anxious look with one that was inspiring in its unshakable confidence, "I mean that on Monday last, the night before your wedding—when I urged you to obtain Yvonne de Kernogan's consent to an immediate marriage—I had followed Martin-Roget to a place called "The Bottom Inn" on Goblin Combe—a place well known to every smuggler in the county."