“Yes.”
“Well, the young lady has disappeared.”
Bayre started up, his brain on fire.
“It’s not—it can’t be true!” he cried hoarsely.
CHAPTER IX.
A MYSTERY
Madame Nicolas looked at Bartlett Bayre with a shrewd suspicion in her eyes. It was evident that the young man took much more than the interest of a casual stranger in Miss Eden’s disappearance.
She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
“Ma foi, monsieur, I do not myself think it so surprising that a good-looking girl like Miss Eden should object to being married off to a man old enough to be her father, and by no means attractive at that. Not that I have a word to say against Monsieur Blaise, who is a most worthy gentleman, and well-to-do. But one must make allowance for the natural tastes of a young girl, especially of a girl whose father was an Englishman.”
Bayre heard very little of these words, and he presently broke in, with great suddenness,—
“When did she disappear?”