“On what grounds?” she asked, looking at me as steadily.

I could not and would not enter into the question with her.

“There has been no personal cruelty on Richard’s part toward her,” she resumed, with a half-smile.  “It’s true I locked her up for a few days once, but he was in Paris, and had nothing to do with it.  You could not prove a single act of cruelty toward her.”

Still I did not answer, though she paused and regarded me keenly.

“We were not married till we had reason to believe her dead,” she continued; “there is no harm in that.  If she has forged those papers, she is to blame.  We were married openly, in our parish church; what could be said against that?”

“Let us return to what I told you at first,” I said; “if you find Olivia, you have no more authority over her than I have.  You will be obliged to return to England alone; and I shall place her in some safe custody.  I shall ascertain precisely how the law stands, both, here and in England.  Now I advise you, for Foster’s sake, make as much haste home as you can; for he will be left without nurse or doctor while we two are away.”

She sat gnawing her under lip for some minutes, and looking as vicious as Madam was wont to do in her worst tempers.

“You will let me make some inquiries to satisfy myself?” she said.

“Certainly,” I replied; “you will only discover, as I have, that the school was broken up a month ago, and Ellen Martineau has disappeared.”

I kept no very strict watch over her during the day, for I felt sure she would find no trace of Olivia in Noireau.  At night I saw her again.  She was worn out and despondent, and declared herself quite ready to return to Falaise by the omnibus at five o’clock in the morning.  I saw her off, and gave the driver a fee, to bring me word for what town she took her ticket at the railway-station.  When he returned in the evening, he told me he had himself bought her one for Honfleur, and started her fairly on her way home.

As for myself, I had spent the day in making inquiries at the offices of the octrois—­those local custom-houses which stand at every entrance into a town or village in France, for the gathering of trifling, vexatious taxes upon articles of food and merchandise.  At one of these I had learned, that, three or four weeks ago, a young Englishwoman with a little girl had passed by on foot, each carrying a small bundle, which had not been examined.  It was the octroi on the road to Granville, which was between thirty and forty miles away.  From Granville was the nearest route to the Channel Islands.  Was it not possible that Olivia had resolved to seek refuge there again?  Perhaps to seek me!  My heart, bowed down by the sad picture of her and the little child leaving the town on foot, beat high again at the thought of Olivia in Guernsey.