‘I can understand it all, sir,’ he said when he had finished, ‘except what happened at the station. I do not see what the gentleman with the bag had to do with the man with the green patch over his eye, whom I saw in the summer-house, or how I could be so stupid as to jump out of the cab and run after him when father told me to stay in it till he came back. And I don’t see why the gentleman wanted to take me with him in the train, even although he must have thought me very rude to run after him like that, saying that I knew him. Do you think that I was beginning to be ill then? For I remember saying that I would call a policeman, and I meant to do so. I saw one along the platform. It was when I turned to go for him that one of the gentlemen pulled me into the carriage. Do you think that my head must have been getting queer then? I almost think that it must.’
‘No, your head was not queer. It was quite clear and sensible, and you were a brave little fellow, Vivian,’ replied Mr Maxwell, a curious light coming into his keen gray eyes, ‘for the man in the summer-house was the same person as the gentleman on the platform, and he and his friends were on their way to France. Probably they had a great deal of your aunt’s silver hidden about them, and if you had been able to get a policeman soon enough they would have been arrested; so the scoundrels preferred to carry you off with them, and to knock you on the head when you were likely to prove troublesome. Oh, I see it all, and so will the men at Scotland Yard when they hear the story; and, please God, the rascals will get their deserts. But you must not talk any more to-night, my boy; you will go to sleep quietly now, and we will discuss it in the morning. And as for your father and mother, why, when they hear everything, I think they will be quite proud of you. For, you know, Vivian, after all, you had owned up before all this happened.’
The little fellow’s face brightened as he heard his long-lost name again.
‘I feel as if I wanted mother dreadfully, all of a sudden,’ he said, as he nestled down drowsily among the pillows. ‘How long will it take her to come?’
Mr Maxwell smiled to himself at the question, which showed how strong, after all, was the childish faith in the mother-love which would forgive so much, and be so ready to start out at once to meet the little prodigal.
Ten minutes later, when he had satisfied himself that Vivian was sleeping peacefully, he went downstairs to the Vicomte, a slip of paper in his hand on which was written an address, and in other ten minutes the two friends were speeding away to Dinard as fast as the new motor-car could take them, in order to send away two telegrams, one of which was a message of good tidings to an English home, and the other an urgent summons to an officer at Scotland Yard.
CHAPTER XXIII.
A HAPPY MEETING.
THE whole of the next day Vivian lay under the lime-tree, hardly speaking at all, a look of happy expectancy on his face. All his dread of meeting his parents seemed to have vanished, and in spite of Mr Maxwell’s assurances that Mrs Armitage could not possibly arrive that night, even if she were at home and able to start the moment she received the telegram, he pleaded to be allowed to remain up an hour later than usual, and only consented to go to bed when his eyes were growing so heavy that he could hardly keep them open.