"You mean?" he gulped out, letting go. "That Milady Blakeney is not the mother of one of her children," said the Frenchwoman, softly. "And that sorrow for having parted with her child has made Madame so miserable as she is now. Follow her, Monsieur. She is worn out from drugged sleep--from remedies full of the cocaine. Follow her swiftly." "Woman, I think you're mad." With a groan stifled in his throat Bertie ran down the stairs and hailed a taxi to drive to Grosvenor Square. The butler was human; distress and gold broke his reserve. "Her ladyship was out of town. Master Cecil had not been well, and her ladyship and the children were at Trelawney in Devonshire." Trelawney was the village close to Cliff End. "Mrs Carteret was here, sir. She got a time-table and looked out the trains; she has left for Devonshire, I fancy. There is a fast train reaching Trelawney at about four, no other now for some time. Mrs Carteret, sir, said she would get a motor, as it would be much quicker." "You, Carteret!" Cyril Blakeney had driven up in his big car. "What is the matter? You look ill." "Slander's the matter. Mischief's the matter," Bertie burst out. "A story too strange for credence is the matter." "A moment! Come in here. The doorstep's no home for confidence." "With you--who spread this lying tale!" rasped Bertie. The two men faced each other. One worn from unhappiness; one big, prosperous, untroubled. "You've only heard it now then? Now, Carteret? Come in here. You're ill. Keep the car, Jarvis! Come and hear my side." There was something dominant in Sir Cyril; his will forced Bertie into the dining-room, kept him there to listen to the explanation. There, quietly, without any exaggeration, he told the whole story. "And you believed this? One side," said Bertie, bitterly. "Sir Cyril, your wife lied; she gave diamonds to my wife." "Gave them? Why?" The big man's voice rang in cool contempt. "That's your wife's story to you." "As silence money for some secret. Esmé told me that. It must have been when they were away in Italy. Sir Cyril, my wife was not lying to-day. It was the truth." "And if mine was?" The big chin stuck out, the heavy brows drew together. Cyril Blakeney could always think quickly. "As silence money," he muttered. Bertie talked on, told how he had spoken to Esmé, and what she had said. "And she was telling the truth," he said proudly. "She's no thief, Blakeney." Denise had spent a great deal of money; Cyril knew that; on charity, she said. He had no thought of what it could be. He believed in his wife as much as he believed in any woman. "Come to Trelawney," he said quietly. "My car is at the door. We cannot catch a train now, and if your wife is hysterical, overwrought, there may be trouble." As a man in a dream, Bertie went with Sir Cyril, heard the quiet questioning, nothing forgotten.