“Arrested!” Nadia dropped into a chair, and pressed her hand to her side. “What do you mean? Tell me.”
“We got along all right, my lady, me and ’is lordship, until something over ’arf a hour ago, when we come to Velisi, which is the station next before this one, as your ladyship knows. Then ’is lordship got out to look what they ’ad on the bookstall, seein’ as the two last ’adn’t no English books at all, and ’e didn’t come back. I was keepin’ ’is place for ’im, and the train was just movin’ on, when I see ’is lordship bein’ took away by four of them pleece they ’as ’ere, with their big ’ats and their queer swords. I tried to jump out after ’im, but the people in the carriage ’eld me back; and I made up my mind to come on ’ere and tell your ladyship.”
“You were quite right,” said Nadia mechanically; but Philippa broke in—
“But, Robert, you saw the policemen take father prisoner? Really policemen? You’re sure it was father?”
“Certain sure, my lady. I’d give all I ’ave so I could say different, but I can’t,” and Robert gulped down a sob.
Philippa’s valiant heart failed her. She had all a well-brought up British child’s veneration for the law, which she looked upon as a species of ogre, given to pouncing, by means of its instruments the police, upon unfortunate individuals who had in some way become obnoxious to it, quite irrespective of their guilt or innocence, and locking them up. It never occurred to her to object that her father had committed no crime, but she brought forward the only consolation she could suggest.
“Don’t look like that, mother,” she urged, with broken voice. “It must be a mistake. They couldn’t take father prisoner if they knew who he was. They wouldn’t dare to do it. They must have thought it was some one else. Oh, mother, they can’t put father in prison?” she ended, sobbing wildly as she caught her mother’s hand.
“Hush, Phil, my poor Phil,” said Nadia quietly, soothing the excited child, and holding out a hand to Usk, down whose face the tears were rolling slowly. “I want you both to be very quiet and good, while I think what we can do for poor father. Of course it is a mistake; but we must be very careful not to make it worse by anything we do or say. Wright, please order a carriage at once, and tell nurse I want to speak to her as you pass.”
Wright returned from his errand almost as soon as nurse entered the room, and Nadia signed to him to shut the door. Philippa, exhausted by the violence of her grief, was crying quietly in her mother’s arms, and Usk was sobbing on the floor beside her, with his face buried in her dress; but her own eyes were tearless, and her voice quite calm.
“I want to speak to you all before the carriage comes, so that you may know what to do. I am afraid that the Government here, finding that Lord Caerleon was coming to Thracia, must have jumped to the conclusion that he was plotting to place himself on the throne again, and thought they would make things safe by arresting him.”