e back here,
Leon?"

"Oh, not for a month at least; I shall keep away till all the fuss
Mathilde will make about the baby is over; meanwhile, if you change your
mind and want the baby back, write to me at my agent's and he will
forward your letter. Adieu."

And Leon, who had handed the baby to Pierre as soon as they met, now
kissed his brother on both cheeks and then sprang into the boat. Smith
pushed her off and sculled them across the moonlit sea to the yacht, the
baron watching them until they reached her and the boat was drawn up to
its davits, when he turned and drove back to the chateau, wondering
greatly how the baroness would bear the loss of her baby, and fearing a
very bad quarter of an hour was in store for him when she learnt what
had become of it.

A stiff breeze was blowing, but with wind and tide in her favour the
yacht sailed smoothly across the Channel, all on board her, except the
baby, being too inured to the sea to feel ill, and, luckily, the
movement of the yacht seemed to lull the child to sleep. When she woke
Pierre was always at hand with some milk, so that she was scarcely heard
to cry during the whole passage, spending the time in sleeping and
eating, and thereby enabling Pierre to earn for himself the character of
a first-rate nurse.

From time to time during the next day Leon came into the cabin to look
at his tiny charge, for whom an impromptu cradle had been made with some
pillows in an easy chair, and who seemed to have the happy knack of
adapting herself to circumstances, for she slept quietly on, with a
smile on her little face, all unconscious of the waves from which a few
planks divided her.

"Poor little mite; I hope they'll be kind to her, Smith, these friends
of yours. I am half sorry I brought her, though the baron wished it,"
said Leon, as he left the cabin; but the next moment he was whistling on
deck as though no such thing as the baby existed.

Towards evening they came in sight of Brighton, whose long sea front,
even in those distant days, stretched for a mile or two along the coast,
and Leon, who knew the town well, and considered it one of the few
English towns in which he could spend a few days without dying of
_ennui_, was anxious to put in there, but Smith dissuaded him.

"If we put in here, sir, they'll be sure to trace the child; it would be
far better to let me go ashore with it in the gig, while you lay
outside."

"But where are we to put in then? Having co