"But I felt so sure that I had heard you mention the name of de Chaulnes, René," he said in justification. "And she seemed, that old she-devil, really to have known your family. For you say that the incident of your being lost in a quarry as a boy is true?"
His son-in-law nodded thoughtfully. "She must have got hold of it somehow—though one would have thought that some fictitious adventure of my youth would have served as well. But I never remember to have heard my parents mention the name."
"M. de la Vireville implied that it was not their own," murmured the old man.
"I think he knows more about them than I do," said René.
"They were gone, at any rate, by the time I got a warrant out against them, as he prophesied in his letter that they would be."
"You have heard from him then!" ejaculated the Marquis. "Where is he, sir? Have I no chance of thanking him in person?"
"I am afraid not," said Mr. Elphinstone. "I would give a thousand pounds to do it. But, after all, what are thanks?"
"All that Fortuné would accept," said the Marquis quickly. "On my soul, I don't know which has moved me more, Anne's danger or his courage, address, and uncalled-for devotion. . . . But where is he, and what of this letter?"
"I believe," said Mr. Elphinstone, taking a paper from his desk, "that he is either in Jersey or back among his Chouans in Brittany. The letter, such as it is, he sent by Mr. Tollemache."
"'I herewith return to you, sir,'" read René de Flavigny, "'my charming travelling-companion, by the hand of a young man who is, I suspect, as unused to acting the nursemaid as I was myself a few days ago. I fear that Anne's apparel is not as Mme. Saunders would wish to find it, but there was not time for my mother completely to repair it, as I could see that she was aching to do. I think that the child is mercifully none the worse for his experiences, and I, for my part, am eternally your debtor for allowing me to go after him.