Barbara in Brittany

by E. A. Gillie

"What are you doing here?" she exclaimed in astonishment, and at first he could not answer for fright.

"I—I—came to look at the place where the man was last night," he gasped at last, "and to see how he could get out of the window."

"Well, I think your curiosity has run away with your politeness," Barbara said. "You might have seen from the garden that the balcony is quite close enough to the tree for any one to get out easily. Is there anything else you would like to examine?"

She need hardly have asked, for he had hurried round to the door before she had half finished speaking, and, only murmuring, "I'm sorry," fled precipitately. She was really rather sorry for him; he looked so abjectly miserable. Nevertheless, she took the precaution of locking the door and putting the key under the mat. She went downstairs more slowly than she had come up, for the boy's visit had made her feel rather queer.

The way he shrank back into the window when she came in had reminded her so much of the manner in which the black figure had acted in the night, and she felt there was something uncanny about the whole thing. However, she made up her mind to say nothing to her aunt just then in case of spoiling her afternoon's pleasure, but she was quite determined to make some rather pointed remarks to the solicitor that evening when no one else was listening, and see how he took them.

Unfortunately, however, she had no opportunity of doing so, for when they went down to dinner, none of the solicitor's family were visible, and Mademoiselle Belvoir remarked that they had all gone out to the theatre, and would not be back till late. The remarks, Barbara supposed, must be postponed till the morrow; but, alas! she never had a chance of making them, for early on the morrow the whole house learned that the solicitor, with his son and daughter, had gone, with apparently no intention of returning.

Mademoiselle Belvoir and her brother had waited up till long after the time they should have returned, and then the brother had hurried to the préfecture to report the matter. He had been growing very suspicious of late, as the solicitor had not paid anything for three weeks: "Waiting for his cheque-book, which had been mislaid," he had said. But the suspicions had been acted on too late, and his mother was cheated out of ever so much money. Every one was highly indignant, and Miss Britton and her niece really felt very grieved that they should have been British subjects who had behaved so badly.

Aunt Anne said she almost felt as if she ought to pay for them and save the honour of their country, but Barbara thought that would be too quixotic. At first Mademoiselle Belvoir thought there might be something inside the man's trunks that would repay them a little for the money lost; but, on being opened, there proved to be nothing but a few old clothes, and Mademoiselle and her brothers remembered that the boy had often gone out carrying parcels, which they used to laugh at.

When all this was being discussed, Barbara thought she might as well tell about finding the boy in her room, and she mentioned her suspicions that he and the nocturnal visitor were one and the same person, and found to her surprise that the Belvoirs had thought the same. Poor things! Barbara was heartily sorry for them, for it was an unpleasant occurrence to happen in a pension, and might make a difference to them in future, apart from the fact that they could hear nothing of the lost money, nor yet of the runaways.

Barbara felt that hitherto her adventures in France had been quite like a story-book, and knew that when her brother Donald heard of them he would be making all kind of wonderful plans for the discovery of the miscreants.