"Yes," he replied, "yes. Something terrible."
Then he devoted himself to the task of discovering what that something terrible could have been.
Meanwhile, Kate, after being utterly broken down and lying between life and death for something short of a month, began to mend at last, her naturally fine though delicate constitution enabling her to triumph over the blow she had received. Then she, too, told Lady Ames that she must discover for her own future ease, if not peace of mind, the reason why her wretched husband, after having disappeared for so many months, had met his end in such a way. Also she undeceived her friend in the belief that she had not heard that wretched husband's last words.
"For," she said, "I heard them all, clearly and distinctly. Heard them! I hear them now--at night; all day; as I lie here. 'I have seen him. He forgives. He is a prisoner in----.' And," she continued, laying a white, wan hand on that of the other who sat by her bedside, "I know well enough to whom he referred. It was to Bertie, to Mr. Elphinston."
"Great heavens!" exclaimed Lady Ames, who, in the excitement of all that had happened since that terrible morning, had absolutely forgotten that this other one was also as mysteriously missing as Lord Fordingbridge had been--"great heavens! to Mr. Elphinston. Yes, it must be. Each word would apply to him. O Kate! what does it all mean?"
"God knows what it means; what it points to none can doubt--to the fact that in the prison from which they brought him the other one is incarcerated; though on what charge I cannot dream. Oh, my dear," she exclaimed to her friend, "beg Sir Charles to find out that--those two things, above all: the prison, and the reason why he is detained. Then, when that is discovered, we may do something to obtain his release, since I am known to so many who have influence."
"Yes," Lady Ames acquiesced, "yes; Charles must do that. Yet there are many prisons in Paris where men are kept unknown to the outer world--La Force, Bicêtre, Vincennes, the Bastille. And what can he have done to be sent to any one of them?"
"Heaven alone knows. Yet, in France, men are sent on the most trivial charges, on suspicion alone, sometimes. Oh, I beseech you, ask your husband to discover first where he is, and then we may learn of what he is accused, and do our best to free him."
Sir Charles, with now a clue as to whom the miserable man had referred, prosecuted his researches with great ardour, keeping ever two points before him for elucidation: the first being the reason for which Fordingbridge had been brought to execution, and the second the prison from which he had been conducted to the Hôtel de Ville; for, when he had discovered the latter, he would know almost of a surety where Elphinston was. Yet almost as well might he have demanded information of the stones in the streets and have expected to receive an answer, as from those whom, with infinite trouble, he sought out.
Commencing with the English ambassador--who professed himself profoundly ignorant of the execution of Lord Fordingbridge, as well as extremely shocked that such an outrage should have been committed upon a nobleman of our country, no matter what his fault was--he next managed to procure an interview with the Mayor of Paris and with the Prefect of Police, the former a more important functionary then than now. Yet all was useless; he got no further. After many visits to the ambassador, the latter told him plainly that Lord Fordingbridge's death would lead to very little discussion between the two countries; moreover, any discussion was just now to be avoided. France and England were by this time sick of warfare and wanted peace, and the only thing that stood in the way of that peace was the espousal of the Stuart cause by France.