"Anne knows a good many things it were better he did not know, sir. I fear that I am responsible for some of his knowledge. That is no doubt why they wanted him."
"You mean they——"
"They will try to get information out of him. Oh, they will not do him any bodily harm; it would not advantage them; but they may frighten him, le pauvre petit! He will come back to you, sir, never fear"—for the old man had sunk into a chair and had hidden his face—"but I am very much afraid he will leave something behind. They will wheedle secrets out of him, for he knows things—he cannot help but know them."
"What is to be done?" asked Mr. Elphinstone hoarsely, his head still between his hands.
"I think I had best post off to Canterbury instantly. Give me your written authority to bring the child back at once."
"But you—you were going to Jersey . . . and ought you, M. de la Vireville, of all people, to run your head into a nest of spies, as you say they are?"
La Vireville gave a shrug. "That cannot be helped," said he. "Believe me, it will be much more difficult if you send an Englishman. Moreover, it is very necessary that I should discover, if I can, how much they have got out of Anne. Do not set the law in motion unless I neither return to-morrow nor send you news. And—you must pardon me—but I shall want money, possibly a good deal of money."
Mr. Elphinstone pulled himself out of his chair and, going to a safe, began with trembling hands to unlock it.
"I cannot believe that you are right," he said brokenly. "And he had Elspeth—he even took his new goldfish with him."
"Neither Elspeth nor a goldfish, I fear, will serve as a talisman," returned the Frenchman rather grimly, pocketing the notes and gold that the old man pushed into his hands. "These two years that Mme. and Mlle. de Chaulnes, as they call themselves, have lived on the Dover road, professedly as sympathisers with the Royalist cause, they have been the reason of more of our plans miscarrying, more of our agents being betrayed, than any half-dozen of the Convention's male spies put together. You see, they are really of noble birth."