His fears were realized. A man was leaning over the child's chair and speaking to her earnestly. Laura looked troubled and irresolute, but all her hesitation fled when she saw her friend. She rose suddenly, eluding with the agility of a child the grasping hand that sought to detain her, and took refuge in his arms.
The darkness and his knowledge of Paris favored L'Estrange. He caught her up and disappeared among the shadows with the rapidity of lightning, leaving the man, who was Golding's agent and had been triumphing in his discovery, altogether baffled. He had certainly shown very little judgment, for he had not even mentioned that he had come from her mother. The first thing he had done was to bewilder the child by cross-examination, to test the truth of his discovery. Then he had told her, in the directest way possible, that the man with whom she was travelling was a bad man, and that it was her duty to leave him at once. This, Laura, who had given her faith to her companion, entirely disbelieved. She rather feared the stranger who had come in the darkness to steal her away from her friend.
But all these contradictions puzzled her brain; she felt alarmed, and in her bewilderment the sight of her friend was reassuring. It was rest for the weary child to be gathered up into his strong arms, and his sudden flight through the cool night-air was rather satisfactory than the contrary. The dry manner of this man of business was so different from the tender reverence, the deep emotion, of the man she called her father!—what wonder then that the little girl, woman-like in her instincts, trusted the one and was glad to flee from the other?
With long strides L'Estrange passed on through the darkness, for, though the child was in his arms, he did not grow weary. His love prevented him from feeling her a burden.
"I shall only give thee up to one, my treasure," he whispered; and Laura was quite content.
If she was becoming unspeakably dear to her friend, he was also becoming dear to her. In his tenderness and devotion he seemed to clasp her round like a providence. The little one began to think that he must be her father, whatever he might say to the contrary.
And while she was thinking they went on together more slowly, as the darkness deepened and the danger of pursuit became less, into the very heart of Paris, among its network of streets and lanes. L'Estrange knew every inch of the way as well by night as by day. This was not his first midnight flight.
They stopped at last before a small house in a little side street. L'Estrange rang the bell, and there came a respectable middle-aged woman to the door. She smiled her recognition, then put out her hand and drew them in.
"C'est toi, donc, mon ami? et, mon Dieu! un bébé! Comment! Mais entre toujours."