Helen looked after his retreating form with the tears springing to her eyes. “Poor Frank!” she sighed, “how he loves Fenella. And yet she has completely spoilt his life. He was such a bright, nice boy once upon a time. It quite makes one’s heart ache to see him as he is now.” CHAPTER XIV. BY RICHARD DOWLING. DERELICT. When Lord Francis found himself in the train on his way up to London from Felixstowe his mind was in a condition bordering on frenzy. The wife of his youth, the wife of his choice, the only woman to whom his heart had ever gone forth with unalloyed joy and limitless bounty, lay at death’s door, from which one hope existed of beckoning her back--the touch of their child’s tiny hand. And now, at this moment of supreme crisis, cursed Fate stepped in and took the child from his sight, snatched the possible deliverer from his arms! Cursed Fate, or Nemesis, or _lex talionis_, call it what one might, there was the maddening fact, the overwhelming act of that foreign woman whom once, in his malignant perversity, he thought he loved, who over and over again swore she loved him and only him! Granted he had treated her badly, had he attempted her life? Why, then, should she attempt his? Why should she seek to kill him through the hearts he held most dear? Because he had made love to her and ridden away? Great Heavens! Was his sin against her a mustard seed to the whole world, in comparison to this attempt on Fenella’s life? From the beginning of their acquaintance, Lucille knew he was married--at no time of their acquaintance did he know much of her. She had her dark eyes, and her mystery, and her history--these were parts of her fascination. She had enslaved him, as a drug or wine might enslave him, for a time; but she had never touched the essence of his being--that was for Fenella, for Fenella only. When he reached London he drove straight to Scotland Yard. If he had been in a normal state he would no doubt have paid a visit to his solicitors first, but he was in no normal state. He could not have told when he ate last, or where he had slept; what day of the week or month it was. All that was usual was worthless, and only the quest he was on worthy of heed. At Scotland Yard he was at once shown into the presence of Inspector Brown. His father’s position made his name illustrious; the murder trial had made himself notorious. “My child--my boy of six--has been stolen. His mother, Lady Francis, is in danger of death from illness, and the instant recovery of the boy is a matter of life and death. She is in brain fever, and the doctor says if her boy is at her bedside when she recovers her senses it may save her life. Whatever sum of money may be necessary to recover the boy I’ll double it, treble it, quadruple it, if you only find him for me, and at once,” he cried out to the inspector, all in a breath. “The recovery of the child does not, unfortunately, depend on mere money, my lord.” “On what, then?”