t 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
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 n