“All?” I cried, blankly. “Where is Mistress de Guilfort?”
“That is what I am half wild about, Captain. I have not seen her since that day, three weeks ago, when she started for this place, after the pardon for you.
“Yesterday I could stand the pain of waiting in idleness no longer, and I came here.”
“Gone three weeks,” I murmured.
“Aye, and with that crafty villain, Sir George Keith, on her track,” and Nanette’s eyes filled with tears.
“You have not found a trace of her, then, Nanette?”
“Not a sign, Captain, since the day she rode off in the farmer’s cart, waving her hand good bye to me.”
Now I have had many hard knots, in life, to untie. I had been put to much thought, at times, how to best approach an enemy, or how to escape from one. But this was something I could not fathom. I have no mind for book matters, nor am I handy with the pen. Yet there were certain points with which I might make a start, as I have seen learned professors do, when they draw strange squares and circles.
The first point was that Lucille had left Salem for Boston. The next point, it would seem, should be to find if she arrived.
Nanette was watching me. When I had made what I might call a start to solve the riddle of Lucille’s long absence, my face cleared a bit. Nanette saw it, and cried: