“Wiggins! The Twins’ greatest friend! Well, I’ll be shot!” cried Sir Maurice; and he laughed.
“But do you mean to say that you think that these children have something to do with the princess’ disappearance? How old are they?” said Miss Lambart in an incredulous tone, for fixed very firmly in her mind was the belief that the princess had been carried off by the Socialists and foreigners.
“I never know whether they are thirteen or fourteen. But I do know that nothing out of the common happens in the Deepings without their having a hand in it. I have the honor to be their uncle,” said Sir Maurice.
“But they’d never be able to persuade her to run away with them. She’s a timid child; and she has been coddled and cosseted all her life till she is delicate to fragility,” Miss Lambart protested.
“If it came to a matter of persuasion, my nephew would persuade the hind-leg, or perhaps even the fore-leg, off a horse,” said Sir Maurice in a tone of deep conviction. “But it would not necessarily be a matter of persuasion.”
“But what else could it be—children of thirteen or fourteen!” cried Miss Lambart.
“I assure you that it might quite easily have been force,” said Sir Maurice seriously. “My nephew and niece are encamped on Deeping Knoll. It is honeycombed with dry sand-stone caves for the most part communicating with one another. I can conceive of nothing more likely than that the idea of being brigands occurred to one or other of them; and they proceeded to kidnap the princess to hold her for ransom. They might lure her to some distance from the Grange before they had recourse to force.”
“It sounds incredible—children,” said Miss Lambart.
“Well, we shall see,” said Sir Maurice cheerfully. Then he added in a more doubtful tone; “If only we can take them by surprise, which won’t be so easy as it sounds.”
Miss Lambart feared that they were on a wild goose chase. But it was a very pleasant wild goose chase; she was very well content to be walking with him through this pleasant sunny land. When presently he turned the talk to matters more personal to her, she liked it better still. He was very sympathetic: he sympathized with her in her annoyance at having had to waste so much of the summer on this tiresome corvée of acting as lady-in-waiting on the little princess; for, thanks to the domineering jealousy of the baroness, it had been a tiresome corvée indeed, instead of the pleasant occupation it might have been. He sympathized with her in her vexation that she had been prevented by that jealousy from improving the health or spirits of the princess.