Before she could get any further, Monsieur interrupted her briskly, and indicating Bayre with a wave of the hand, said, with elaborate courtesy,—
“Ah! Is it that you wish to marry this gentleman?—this nephew of your guardian?”
The blood rushed into her pale face as she drew herself up.
“Oh, dear, no. I never thought of such a thing!” she cried emphatically.
Bayre drew himself up too, and Monsieur Blaise smiled so expansively that the flesh of his large round face rolled up into a succession of shiny pink ridges.
“It is well, it is well,” he said, “but we should be grateful for his excellent suggestion. I agree with him that you should go back to your guardian’s house, and this gentleman and I will discuss the matter of his kinsman’s eccentricity, which is undoubted. In the meantime you need have no cause for alarm while you have two friends near at hand. You are staying in Guernsey, monsieur?”
“For a few days only. I propose to go over to Creux, and to put up at the house of the boatman who lives by the landing-place. He lets lodgings, I know.”
“A good idea!” assented Monsieur Blaise. “In the meantime I should like to have a few further words with you upon this matter, when we have seen this young lady safe on her return journey.”
Miss Eden was taken aback by this sudden settling of her destinies, but she submitted, and returned at once to Madame Portelet’s cottage, to prepare her hostess for her departure. Monsieur Blaise took Bayre confidentially by the arm, and walked with him some distance, talking eagerly, and panting as he talked.
“My dear young friend,” he said earnestly, “I am glad you came here. I have had certain doubts, certain very odd suspicions, I may now confess, about our friend at Creux. With a member of his family who shares my opinion that something is wrong there, I am bold, I am fearless. We will go together, you and I, to the château, we will meet your uncle face to face, side by side.” And he waved his arm in the manner of one who storms a fortress sword in hand. “And we will solve our doubts without delay.”