other guests leaving on the through train for Paris that morning, and as
Miladi had insisted that he should not wait, he had returned to the
hotel. Miladi was very positive.

"You are sure there was not a ... a little boy with her?" Sophy asked.

Yes--the porter was quite sure that there had been no little boy with
Miladi.

Sophy's mind was working in terrible, clear flashes.

She turned to Rosa, who stood a little apart, rather scared, feeling
that something puzzling and dreadful was in the air, but only
understanding now and then a word of the English in which all were
speaking.

"You said that Lady Wychcote took her maid with her this morning, didn't
you?" Sophy asked.

Rosa replied that Anna had certainly started for Murano with Lady
Wychcote and Bobby.

It seemed to Sophy that she saw it all now. Her mother-in-law, afraid of
being traced too easily if she kept the boy with her, had left him
somewhere with Anna until a few minutes before the train started. Anna
was a clever, middle-aged Yorkshire woman who had been with her ladyship
some twenty years. She could be trusted to hold her tongue and act
intelligently in such a case. She was, oddly enough, devoted to her
mistress, and would never have thought of questioning her commands, no
matter how singular they might have appeared to her.

And yet--could Lady Wychcote really have dared to kidnap the boy--for it
was nothing less than kidnapping if she had taken him away with her in
that determined, secret fashion. But why? What excuse could she give?
And had she really done it! And, if not, where was Bobby? Where was her
little son at this late hour of the evening? She felt quite crazy and
witless for a few moments. What to do? How to act? And time was going.
If Bobby had really been stolen from her, then she must follow on the
next train, if possible. But where? Where would that relentless old
woman take him? If she (Sophy) went to Paris--she would have no further
clue on reaching it. Lady Wychcote might go on to England; she might
not. And why? Why?

Suddenly she knew. In a searing flash she knew just why it was that Lady
Wychcote had taken the boy--and that she had surely taken him. She
remembered that strange tone in her voice last night, when she had
spoken with her after Amaldi had left. Yes--that was it! She had thought
the worst of her late return in company with Amaldi. She would give that
as her reason for taking away the boy--his mother's unfitn