“Yes, but I do not know that Drusilla suspects him very strongly now. Pina first suggested it, and we seized on the idea with eagerness. It was so much more comforting to think that he was safe with his father than in danger anywhere else.” “But, you see, that is impossible. His father is lying seriously wounded, several hundred miles away.” “Yes, that is the worst of it; for, if Alick should have employed these men to steal little Lenny from his mother, it is almost fatal to the child’s safety that the father should not have been here to have received him from his abductors.” “And yet that may be the very case! Alick, in his madness, since he was mad enough for anything, may have engaged these men to abduct the boy for him. If so, he must have forgotten the danger to which the child would be exposed in the event of this abduction being completed during his own absence or after his death. And so he must have gone down to Jersey to fight his duel, leaving little Lenny exposed to all the dangers he had invoked around him. It is dreadful to think of! If Alexander Lyon were not morally insane, he would be a demon!” “To do such a thing as this? But we are not by any means sure he _did_ do it, Dick!” “No, there is a ‘reasonable doubt,’ as the lawyers have it.” “And Alick should be communicated with immediately, so as to be posted in regard to his son’s danger, whether he has had any hand in it or not. If he _has_ had anything to do with it, he will certainly, under the circumstances, give us the clue to recover him, for he cannot wish the boy to remain in the hands of such people. If he knows nothing about the abduction, and learns it first from us, still he will render what aid he can in recovering the boy. We _did_ telegraph him to this effect at Southampton, but of course he missed _his_ telegram as you did yours. But now he must be consulted by letter immediately—write at once, Dick, so as to save this mail,” said Anna, breathlessly. “My darling, you talk so fast I can’t keep pace with you or even get in a word edgeways,—Alick is not in a condition to receive or understand any sort of communication, and will not probably be so for some days to come. I left him in a state of complete insensibility, resulting from the wound in the back of his head.” “Good gracious, Dick! and you said he was not fatally, or even dangerously wounded!” cried Anna, aghast. “And I gave the opinion of the eminent surgeon who is in attendance upon him. A man may be so ill as to be incapable of attending to anything, and yet may not be in any danger at all. But tell me, Anna, have you taken the detectives into your confidence entirely upon this subject, and put them into possession of all the facts of the case and all your suspicions as well? You know you ought to have done it.”