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.

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.