All the baron's arguments as to the advantages to the baby which were to be derived from his scheme, and the wonderful health and strength it was to derive from leading a less luxurious life, failed to reassure the baroness, and she passed a sleepless night, and looked so ill and miserable the next morning that the baron was angry with her for looking ill, and with himself for being the cause. No one in the house but the baroness had been told the night before what had become of the baby, the general opinion being that it had been taken or sent to some woman in the neighbourhood to look after; but when it became known that it was sent away in Léon's charge no one knew where, the sympathy with the baroness was universal, and the baron found himself looked upon as a jealous tyrant, with no real love for either his wife or child.
"A nice father you are," cried his brother Jacques.
"The idea of trusting Léon with a baby. Why, he will pitch it overboard if it cries," said little Louis, a remark which so annoyed the baron that he promptly seized Louis by the collar and turned him out of the room.
"You really must have been mad, Arnaud, to dream of such a thing as entrusting Léon, of all people in the world, with an infant," said the old baroness, for once taking the part of her daughter-in-law against her son.
Père Yvon said nothing just then; it would not have been wise to have done so while the baron's temper was ruffled by the criticisms of his family or in their presence, but when he was alone with Arnaud, Père Yvon spoke his mind pretty freely, and read the baron a severer lecture than he had ever done all the years he was under his tuition.
It was nothing but jealousy which had prompted such a mad, cruel act, and jealousy of the most unreasonable—he might almost say unpardonable—kind: a father to be jealous of his wife's love for his own child! There was a German saying, excellent in the original, but which lost the double play upon the words in the translation which Père Yvon quoted to the baron—
"Die Eifersucht ist eine Leidenschaft,
Der mit Eifer sucht muss Leiden schaffen,"
which means, freely translated, that jealousy is a passion which brings misery to him who indulges in it; and Père Yvon impressed upon Arnaud that if any misfortune happened to the baby, he would have no one to blame but himself, for though all sins bring their own punishment, jealousy is undoubtedly one that can never be indulged in with impunity. This, and much more to the same effect, Père Yvon said, and the baron, lying in an easy chair, listened patiently enough, partly because he was very fond of the chaplain, and partly because he was so angry with himself now for his folly that it was a relief to him to be blamed roundly for it.
All that day the baroness wandered about the house in a vague, restless way, unable to settle to anything, and trying to amuse herself by consulting with the nurse as to how they should go and fetch the baby back when they discovered where it was. She ate little or nothing, and after another sleepless night looked so worn and ill that the baron sent for a doctor, who came and urged strongly that the baby should be sent for at once, or he would not be answerable for the consequences; the suspense and anxiety were telling so on the baroness that if the strain lasted much longer he feared she would have an attack of brain fever.
On hearing this the baron was dreadfully alarmed, and telegraphed to Léon's agent at Havre to let him know immediately he heard from M. Léon de Thorens, who had sailed two nights before in the Hirondelle for a cruise in the Channel. The agent telegraphed back that he knew no more than M. le Baron at present, but so soon as he received any further information he would let the baron know. This did not reassure the baroness, who had taken it into her head that something had happened to the yacht, and not all Arnaud's promises that the moment he knew where the child was he would go himself and bring her back could comfort the poor, anxious little mother, who, with pale cheeks and black marks round her great brown eyes, which were always large but looked bigger than ever now that they had not been closed since the baby left, wandered about the château, looking like a picture of despair.