“A little more than two years, monsieur, since he brought her to Creux, and it is six months since she ran away.”
“Ran away!”
All the young men echoed the words in different keys. It was satisfactory, at any rate, to know that the unknown beauty who had excited so much attention among them was not the ogre’s wife.
“Then who is the young girl—”
The good woman put up her hand and bowed her head, as an intimation that she wished to proceed with her tale her own way. And she again addressed Bayre,—
“She ran away, as well she might; and the only pity is that she was not allowed to take her baby with her!”
“Baby!”
“Yes, messieurs, a charming baby. She ran away with him, and reached the port here with him safely. But Marie Vazon, who had charge of the child, played her false at the last, and left the poor young mother to go alone to England without him. Oh, those Vazons! They are the spies of old M. Bayre; father and daughter they have command of everything for him. And they do say that old M. Bayre and Mees Ford knew what young Madame was going to do, and that, like the selfish old people they were, they rejoiced to get rid of her. As for the baby, it is left to Marie Vazon at the farm. A pretty nurse, ma foi!”
And Madame raised her eyebrows with a significant look.
Again Southerley’s voice broke in. All this information about wives and babies might be very exciting for Bayre, whose chances of being his uncle’s heir were thus destroyed, but compared with the great subject, that of the glorious girl in the fisher cap, it was positively tedious.