"Well, to put it plainly, John Dampier was madly in love"—the speaker thought his companion winced, and, rather sorry than glad at the success of his little ruse, he hurried on:—"that being so he naturally wished to be married at once. But an English marriage settlement—especially when the lady has the money, which was the case with Miss Tremain—cannot be drawn up in a few days. Nancy herself was willing to assent to everything he wished; in fact I had to point out to her that it is impossible to get engaged on Monday and married on Tuesday! I suppose she thought that because I very properly objected to some such scheme of theirs, I disliked John Dampier. This was a most unreasonable conclusion, Mr. Burton!"
Gerald Burton felt disappointed. He did not believe that the English lawyer was answering truly. He did not stay to reflect that Mr. Stephens was not bound to answer indiscreet questions, and that when a young man asks an older man whether or no he dislikes someone, and that someone is a client, the question is certainly indiscreet.
In a small way the painful mystery was further complicated by the attitude of Mère Bideau. Bribes and threats were alike unavailing to make the old Breton woman open her mouth. She was full of suspicion; she refused to answer the simplest questions put to her by either Mr. Stephens or Gerald Burton.
And the lawyer felt a moment of sharp impatience, as business men are so often apt to feel in their dealings with women, when, in answer to his remark that Mère Bideau would be brought to her knees when she found her supplies cut off, Nancy, with tears running down her cheeks, cried out in protest:—"Oh, Mr. Stephens, don't say that! I would far rather go on paying the old woman for ever than that she should be brought, as you say, to her knees. She was such a good servant to Jack: he is—he was—so fond of her."
But Mère Bideau's attitude greatly disconcerted and annoyed the Englishman. He wondered if the old woman knew more than she would admit; he even suspected her of knowing the whereabouts of her master; the more impenetrable became the mystery, the less Mr. Stephens believed Dampier to be dead.
And then, finally, on the last day of his stay in Paris something happened which, to the lawyer's mind, confirmed his view that John Dampier, having vanished of his own free will, was living and well—though he hoped not happy—away from the great city which had been searched, or so the police assured the Englishman, with a thoroughness which had never been surpassed if indeed it had ever been equalled.
CHAPTER XIII
With Mr. Stephens' morning coffee there appeared an envelope bearing his name and a French stamp, as well of course as the address of the obscure little hotel where the Burtons had found him a room.
The lawyer looked down at the envelope with great surprise. The address was written in a round, copybook hand, and it was clear his name must have been copied out of an English law list.
Who in Paris could be writing to him—who, for the matter of that, knew where he was staying, apart from his own family and his London office?