"If I had been uncomfortable before, you may imagine what effect your letter had on me in which you informed me that a reward of five hundred pounds was offered for the recovery of the missing heir. For the next few days I was like a distracted woman, turning over in my mind a dozen schemes, each one more wild and impracticable than the last. "Then, all at once, the black clouds opened and a way of escape lay clear before me. "As I daresay you may remember, not only Mrs. Balchin, but her husband, is in my service, the latter having acted as my coachman ever since my marriage. Well, a few mornings ago Balchin received a letter from a firm of lawyers in New York informing him that a legacy equivalent to five hundred pounds of English money had been left him by an uncle lately deceased, but that it would be requisite for him to go over to the States, and be prepared to prove his identity, before the money could be paid him. When he came to me and showed me his letter, and told me all this, I could have found it in my heart to embrace him. "Can you guess, _mon cher frère_, what were the first words I said to myself? They were these: 'Balchin's wife shall keep him company on the voyage, and with them they shall take young Cortelyon. _But they shall come back alone?_ "There is no need to trouble you with details. It will be enough to state that by the evening of the second day after Balchin's receipt of the letter all arrangements had been made, and the little party of three were ready to start. They were to have the use of my carriage as far as Tuxford, where they would join the night coach for the south on their way to Liverpool, from which port they would sail by the first available packet for New York, Balchin is a capable man, and I had no fear about his failing to carry out the instructions laid down for him. Of course the expenses of the journey, so far as his wife and the child were concerned, were to be defrayed by me. "I ought to mention here that I had often heard Mrs. Balchin refer to her numerous clan of cousins in America, and when I put the case before her she readily engaged, for a hundred pounds paid down, to get the boy permanently adopted by one of them. As you know, I could ill spare any such sum, but I would have made a still greater sacrifice rather than let the opportunity go by of ridding myself of what had latterly become the incubus of my life. "The clocks were striking nine when they started, which would leave them an hour and a-half for the journey to Tuxford. Balchin was on the box, with the stable-boy beside him, whom it was necessary to take in order that he might bring back the carriage. Inside were Mrs. Balchin and the child, the latter soundly asleep under the influence of a narcotic. You can but faintly imagine with what an intense feeling of relief I watched the carriage disappear in the soft darkness of the autumn night.