Then Marie glanced at the younger Bayre, and an idea flashed into her mind.
“You have told him, told him everything, and you have joined together to keep up this secret, this plot!” cried she, advancing upon the old man and peering angrily into his face. “You think, when there are two of you in it, you can defy us and everybody. But you shall not! Oh, you shall not! You shall neither of you profit by this wickedness—”
“Wickedness! You talk of wickedness, you!” cried old Mr Bayre.
“Yes. What was our deceit to yours? It was a trifle, a nothing. And for you to talk to us of greed! Ha! ha! ha!”
And she burst into an hysterical mocking laugh as she fell back, away from the old man, retreating again to her father’s side.
Young Bayre, not moving from his corner, held his tongue, hoping each moment that some word would drop which would let him as much into the secret as the Vazons believed that he was already.
But a certain reticence, born of their rustic cunning, characterised their utterances even in the heat of passion. They alluded to facts, but they took care to make no direct statement, and for all his interest, and for all their outbursts, he remained as much in the dark as ever.
Old Mr Bayre increased in confidence, too, on realising that his own secret remained undisclosed, and it was with almost a jaunty air that he suddenly turned to his nephew and beckoned him out of the house.
“We are more than a match, I think, Bartlett, for these malignant rustics,” he said, as he led the way out and turned at the door to say, “You understand that I mean to find out where the child is—the child I put in your charge—my child!”
And he slammed the door in the face of another outburst, half indignant, half plaintive, from father and daughter.