Madame de Courcy and the baroness were on intimate terms with each
other, although Madame de Courcy was a staunch Protestant, and both the
baron and baroness bigoted Romanists; but the great attraction to
Mathilde, as Madame de Courcy guessed, would be her child, a beautiful
boy of three years old, in whom the baroness had delighted until her own
baby was born and absorbed all her time and affection. Knowing this,
Madame de Courcy offered to send her boy to the château with the baron,
hoping to inveigle the baroness to return with him to Parc du Baffy, a
manoeuvre which succeeded admirably, for Mathilde, not having seen the
little Rex for some weeks, was so enraptured with him that she could not
part with him, and as Madame de Courcy could not be asked to spare her
child as well as her husband, the baroness consented to go and stay at
the Parc while the baron was away. The little Rex was too old to remind
her of her own baby, and his pretty mixture of French and English amused
her immensely, and for the moment charmed away her sorrow. Had she known
the real object of her husband's visit to England, the suspense and
anxiety would have made her seriously ill; not knowing it, the change
and Rex's society did her good, so that Madame de Courcy was able, after
a day or two, to write to the baron and tell him his wife was certainly
better and more cheerful since she had been at the Parc du Baffy.

Meanwhile the baron and M. de Courcy reached Yarmouth safely, and
learned the day and hour on which the Hirondelle arrived and also left
Yarmouth, and that the cause of her remaining so long there was the
absconding of an English sailor, named, or, at all events, calling
himself, John Smith. The baron was more elated than ever at hearing
this, for he knew the Englishman was to place the baby out to nurse, and
if he were safe, the chances were that the child was too; but when,
after having run two or three John Smiths to earth and discovered that
they bore no resemblance to the original, it became evident that the