"She is not stolen, she is safe enough," said the baron, sulkily. "Safe? Where? Where? Take me to her, my precious one; where is she?" cried the baroness, with a loud burst of hysteric laughter on hearing her child was safe. "Silence, Mathilde, don't behave in this ridiculous style. Come with me," said the baron, in a tone his wife had never heard him use to her before, and which had the effect of reducing her to tears; and, sobbing wildly, she hung on her husband's arm as he half led, half carried her upstairs, and laid her on a sofa in her own room. "Now, Mathilde, if you will try and compose yourself, I will tell you what I have done with the baby. For some time I have felt sure that you were ruining the child's health by the absurd way in which you coddle it up, and, moreover, making yourself a perfect slave to it, neglecting all your other duties," began the baron, as he seated himself on the edge of the sofa by the side of his sobbing wife, who was, however, much too anxious about her baby to be able to listen patiently to the marital lecture to which the baron was about to treat her. "But Arnaud! Arnaud! where is the baby? Oh, do tell me; it is cruel to keep me in this suspense," sobbed the baroness. Now, to be cruel to his wife was the very last thing the baron intended; it was only out of the extremity of his jealous love for her that he had sent the baby away. Thoughtless and selfish he might have been, but surely no one could say he had been guilty of cruelty to this wife, whom he loved so madly that even her love for her child had raised the demon of jealousy within his breast. The word "cruel" stung him to the quick; it was a new phase of his conduct, one that had never struck him before, and as he glanced at the poor little baroness, who had half risen on the sofa, and was looking at him with an agonised look on her pretty face, he was seized with remorse, and felt it impossible to go on with the _role_ he had attempted to play of the wise father and husband, who had only acted for the good of his wife and child. Already he was beginning to repent of his rash act, and if it had been possible to go after the yacht the chances are the baron would have started at once, and brought back the baby for the pleasure of seeing its mother smile again. As it was impossible, the next best thing was to make the best of it, and if Mathilde could not be comforted in any other way, why he must promise to let her have it back again. He decided all this as he petted the baroness, and tried to comfort her by whispering fond nothings into her ear; but he soon found all his caresses were useless, unless he yielded to her entreaties and told her where the baby was, and as all he knew about it was that it was on board Leon's yacht, on which it was being taken, he believed, to England, though he was by no means sure, this did not tend to allay the poor mother's anxious fears.