Yielding to Madame Fantine’s insistence the newcomers turned toward the entrance to the hotel. But before he had taken a dozen steps Major Stickney halted. “Hold on!” he exclaimed. “I’ve got to go in a minute. I’ll be back tonight, Mr. Telfair--but I want to know something before I go. Tell me, Peter, and you too, Madame Fantine, did you not come from France to Gallipolis in 1790?” The Bondies stopped short. Madame Fantine’s startled eyes sprang to Alagwa’s face, then dropped away. “But yes, Monsieur,” she cried. “But yes! Ah! It was dreadful. The company have defraud us. They have promised us the rich lands and the pleasant climate and the fine country and the game most abundant. And when we come we find it is all covered with the great forests. There is no land to grow the crops until we cut away the trees. Figure to yourself, messieurs, was it not the wicked thing to bring from Paris to such a spot men who know not to cut trees?” Stickney nodded. “It was pretty bad,” he admitted. “There’s no doubt about that, though the company wasn’t altogether to blame, I believe. But what I wanted to ask was whether a gentleman, M. Delaroche Telfair, was on your ship.” “M. Delaroche! You know M. Delaroche?” Madame Fantine’s eyes grew big and the color faded from her cheeks. “But yes, monsieur, he was on the ship. And he was with us before. We knew him well. Is it not so, Pierre?” Peter Bondie nodded. “All the life we have known M. Delaroche,” he said. “We were born on the estate of his father, the old count. Later we have come with him to America. Ah! But he was the great man! When he married Mademoiselle Delawar at Marietta, Fantine go to her as maid. Later she nurse la bebée. And then Madame Telfair die, and M. Delaroche is all, what you call, broke up. He take la bebée and he go away into the woods and I see him never again. But I hear that he is dead and that la bebée grows up with the Indians.” “She did!” Major Stickney struck in. “She was with them till the other day. Now she has disappeared. I thought, perhaps, you might know something of her. Mr. Telfair here has come to Ohio to find her.” The French woman’s beady eyes jumped to Jack’s face. “This monsieur!” she gasped. “Is he of the family Telfair?” “Yes, of the American branch. His people have lived in Alabama for a hundred years!” “And he seeks the Lady Estelle?” Wonder spoke in the woman’s tones. Stickney nodded impatiently. “Yes! Of course,” he reiterated. “The old Count Telfair is dead and his estates all belong to the daughter of M. Delaroche. The title descends to the English branch, to Mr. Brito Telfair----” “M. Brito!” Fantine and Pierre looked at each other. “Ah! that is what bring him to Canada,” they cried, together. “You knew that he was in Canada?” It was Jack who asked the question.