“I must confess that such a course of action would be very agreeable to me.”
“Well, I shan’t tell you,” said the Count, “where your ward is. I will take you with me, if you will go. I will leave you in a place several miles distant from where I know she is living, and you must remain there until I have had time to prosecute my suit. At the critical moment I shall call upon you for your assistance. Is that plan satisfactory to you?”
“Perfectly,” said Mr. Glynne.
“If Mr. De Vinne comes to Paris,” said the Count, “he will find it difficult to ascertain your ward’s whereabouts. We shall leave for our destination to-morrow morning; in the meantime I shall be pleased to have you as my guest.”
The next day the allies started upon their journey, one influenced by thoughts of love, the other by thoughts of gold.
It is an old saying that the devil leaves his followers half-way. Even the most astute of men will do some foolish thing that upsets his plans. Count Mont d’Oro was no exception to the rule.
Jacques, the coachman, had told the truth. He was devoted to the Countess and she trusted him implicitly. No sooner was Jacques certain that the Count had left the house than he made his way to his master’s rooms. He ransacked them from one end to the other. “He would not take it with him,” he soliloquised. “Perhaps he destroyed it. I have looked over carefully everything that came from his room, but it was not there. He has had no fire and he could not have burned it. Ah! I have not looked into that,” he exclaimed, as he espied a square wooden box on the top of a chiffonier. In a moment it was in his possession. It was locked, but Jacques had brought a screw-driver with him for possible use, and the cover was soon wrenched off. It was full of letters.
“He read my letter,” said Jacques, “I will read his.” There were daintily written and perfumed epistles, love letters from ladies of the haut ton, both married and single, who now wished, no doubt, that their missives were back in their own hands or burned. Jacques threw them aside one after another. “Bah!” he exclaimed, “what a miserable flirt he is. I am so sorry he caught me and found out where that beautiful young lady is gone; but the Countess will protect her.” Suddenly he gave a cry of delight. At the bottom of the box was the letter for which he had been searching.
As fate willed it, on the afternoon of the same day, Mr. Jack De Vinne, heir to the Earldom of Noxton, presented himself at the residence of Countess Mont d’Oro in Paris. He had been to Buckholme, had seen Clarence, and learned from his wife that Mr. Thomas Glynne had gone to Paris in search of his ward.
“He is gone to bring her back,” said Jennie. “I do not know whether English law holds in France or not, but they say possession is nine points of the law, and I am sure the Countess will not give her up if there is any way of keeping her.”