Adolphe had not told his mother of the children's flight, for she was still very feverish and excitable; but he said she would be relieved to know where they had found refuge. And then he gave Walter the English money which Mr. Marton had left for their use, and which his mother had kept unbroken.
Walter took it, though reluctantly, but he saw that it would have hurt Adolphe to refuse it; and he also reflected that there were other ways in which the Nestors could be rewarded for their kindness. And so he left the Rue Verte with all the children's belongings safely piled on the top of the cab, and with a much more friendly feeling to the upholsterer than he had expected to have, promising to let him know the result of the inquiries his aunt intended immediately to set on foot; and also assuring him that they should not leave Paris without coming to say good-bye to him and his kind old mother.
When the two tired but happy little people were safely in bed that night, their three new friends sat round the fire to have a good talk about them.
"It is a very strange affair, really," said Walter. "I'm more than half inclined to agree with Nestor that the father must be dead."
"But even then," said Auntie, "the friends in England who had charge of them would have known it, and would have sent to inquire about them."
"That 'Miss Susan,' as they call her, seems to me to have thought of nothing but the easiest way to get rid of them," said Rosamond indignantly. "She should never have let them start without a letter or a telegram of Captain Bertram's being actually in Paris, and, as far as I can make out from little Gladys, she had not got that—only of his arrival at Marseilles and his intention of coming."
"Did Gladys mention Marseilles? Does she know where it is?" asked Walter.
"Yes, she said the old lady whom they were very fond of showed it to her on the map, and explained that it was the town in France 'at which the big ships from India stopped,' Gladys is quite clear about all that. She is a very clever child in some ways, though in others she seems almost a baby."
"Nothing about her would surprise me after her managing to find her way here," said Auntie. "Just fancy her leading that baby, Roger, all the way here from the Rue Verte!"