real John Smith had made himself scarce, and was probably not John Smith
at all, the baron's hopes of recovering the child again fell, though he
could not abandon the idea that if he could only find the runaway
sailor he should hear some news of the child. The wish was, perhaps,
father to the thought, but he could not help thinking the child was not
on board the Hirondelle when she went down, now that he found the
English carpenter had left the yacht at Yarmouth. But the baron felt his
inability to speak English a great drawback to prosecuting his inquiries
as fully as he would have liked, although M. de Courcy was very kind and
did all any friend could have been expected to do; still, it was not the
same as speaking the language himself, as the baron felt, and he
bitterly regretted he had never tried to master its difficulties. Many
of the Yarmouth fishermen and boatmen remembered the Hirondelle and the
handsome French gentleman to whom she belonged, but not one had ever
seen the sign of a baby on board her, though this did not throw much
light on the matter, as the baby might easily have been kept below or
removed at night.

At last, after spending a week or ten days in fruitless inquiries, the
baron and his friend returned to France, the baron convinced in his own
mind that some hope of his child being safe still existed, a hope which
he dared not communicate to the baroness, but which, nevertheless,
lingered in his breast for many a long day.

(_To be continued._)




THE ROMANCE OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND;