“Just what I said myself, cousin,” replied Rupert triumphantly. “I don’t say the boy hasn’t his reasons, but what the devil he can want in Dijon beats me.”
“Let me see Juliana,” interrupted the Duchess. “I think perhaps she will know where is my son, for he is fond of her, and I feel very certain that she has seen him.”
Madame gave a start. “Juliana?” she echoed hollowly. “Alas, then, you do not know!”
LordRupert looked at her with misgiving in his face. “Burn it, I believe you’re going to start a mystery now. What’s to do? Not that I want to know, for I’ve enough on my hands as it is, but you’d best tell us and so be done with it.”
Thus encouraged, madame delivered her terrific pronouncement: “Juliana has eloped with Vidal!”
The effect of this on her hearers was to bereave them, momentarily, of all power of speech. Léonie stood staring in astonished incredulity, and Lord Rupert’s jaw dropped perceptibly. Léonie found her tongue first.
“Bah, what a piece of nonsense!” she said. “I do not at all believe it!”
“Read that!” commanded madame dramatically, and handed her a crumpled sheet of paper.
It contained a brief message in Juliana’s sprawling characters: “ My dear Tante, pray do not be in a taking, but I have gone with Vidal. I have No Time to write more, for I am in Desperate Haste. Juliana.”
“But — but it is not possible!” stammered Léonie, growing quite pale.