Marie began to cry, and to pour forth such a volley of words, excuses, fears, alarms, and wonders that the baroness could make out nothing, and rushed to the nursery to see for herself what had happened. The empty cradle did not, however, throw much light upon it, and the servants who answered the bell, which the baroness clashed wildly, looked as scared as the sobbing Marie to find the baby had disappeared. A search from attic to basement was at once instituted, the men-servants were sent into the grounds with lanterns, the whole house was turned topsy-turvy, in the midst of which the nurse returned, and finding her baby was gone, went into violent hysterics, while the young baroness, with flying hair and dilated eyes, rushed about, wringing her hands, and looking, as she felt, distracted with grief.
The search was, of course, in vain, and they were just coming to the conclusion that the baby had been stolen, when the baron returned from seeing Léon off.
The moment the baroness heard his voice in the hall she flew down the wide oak staircase, crying, "Arnaud! Arnaud! My precious baby is gone, it is stolen; find her, find her, or I shall go mad." And a glance at her wild eyes almost testified she spoke the truth.
"She is not stolen, she is safe enough," said the baron, sulkily.
"Safe? Where? Where? Take me to her, my precious one; where is she?" cried the baroness, with a loud burst of hysteric laughter on hearing her child was safe.
"Silence, Mathilde, don't behave in this ridiculous style. Come with me," said the baron, in a tone his wife had never heard him use to her before, and which had the effect of reducing her to tears; and, sobbing wildly, she hung on her husband's arm as he half led, half carried her upstairs, and laid her on a sofa in her own room.
"Now, Mathilde, if you will try and compose yourself, I will tell you what I have done with the baby. For some time I have felt sure that you were ruining the child's health by the absurd way in which you coddle it up, and, moreover, making yourself a perfect slave to it, neglecting all your other duties," began the baron, as he seated himself on the edge of the sofa by the side of his sobbing wife, who was, however, much too anxious about her baby to be able to listen patiently to the marital lecture to which the baron was about to treat her.
"But Arnaud! Arnaud! where is the baby? Oh, do tell me; it is cruel to keep me in this suspense," sobbed the baroness.
Now, to be cruel to his wife was the very last thing the baron intended; it was only out of the extremity of his jealous love for her that he had sent the baby away. Thoughtless and selfish he might have been, but surely no one could say he had been guilty of cruelty to this wife, whom he loved so madly that even her love for her child had raised the demon of jealousy within his breast. The word "cruel" stung him to the quick; it was a new phase of his conduct, one that had never struck him before, and as he glanced at the poor little baroness, who had half risen on the sofa, and was looking at him with an agonised look on her pretty face, he was seized with remorse, and felt it impossible to go on with the rôle he had attempted to play of the wise father and husband, who had only acted for the good of his wife and child. Already he was beginning to repent of his rash act, and if it had been possible to go after the yacht the chances are the baron would have started at once, and brought back the baby for the pleasure of seeing its mother smile again. As it was impossible, the next best thing was to make the best of it, and if Mathilde could not be comforted in any other way, why he must promise to let her have it back again. He decided all this as he petted the baroness, and tried to comfort her by whispering fond nothings into her ear; but he soon found all his caresses were useless, unless he yielded to her entreaties and told her where the baby was, and as all he knew about it was that it was on board Léon's yacht, on which it was being taken, he believed, to England, though he was by no means sure, this did not tend to allay the poor mother's anxious fears.
Her baby confided to the wild Léon's charge, tossed about in a yacht with not a woman on board to take care of it, her fragile little daughter, on whom the wind had never been allowed to blow, now at the mercy of wind and waves for days, and then, supposing the child was alive, which in her present mood the baroness declared to be impossible, even if it were, not to know where it was till Léon came back, perhaps for a week or more, for the baron dare not tell her it would probably be a month before he returned—oh, it was unbearable! She was sure she could neither eat nor sleep until she had her baby back. Life until then would be a burden to her. What could she do without it? Already she was sure it knew her; and oh, how happy she had been watching by its cradle! If Arnaud only knew how she delighted in nursing and playing with it, even to gaze on it while it slept was a joy to her! Oh, if he only understood, he would never have been so cruel as to send it away.