She looked at me very anxiously.
"Mr. Greatson," she said, "you do not know my mother. If she makes up her mind to anything she is terribly hard to change. I do hope that you succeed, though. Why ever did Isobel leave you?"
"She received a forged letter, written in somebody else's name," I said. "How your mother has induced her to stay since, though, I do not know. She looked very ill at Charing Cross, and she had to be helped into the train."
The Princess Adelaide went very white.
"It was she I heard this morning—cry out," she murmured. "They told me it was one of the servants who had had an accident. Mr. Greatson, this is terrible!"
She turned her head away, and I could see that she was crying.
"You must not distress yourself," I said kindly. "I daresay that it will all come right. You will see Isobel, I think, in Paris. If you do, will you give her a message?"
"Of course, I will," she answered.
"Tell her that we are close at hand, and that we have powerful friends," I whispered. "We shall get to see her somehow or other, and if she chooses to return she shall!"
"Yes. Anything else?"