“I don’t presume to offer a positive opinion, ma’am; but I think Mr. Linley and his lawyer have their suspicions.  Plainly speaking, I am afraid spies are set to watch us already.”

“Impossible!”

“You shall hear.  I travel second-class; one saves money and one finds people to talk to—­and at what sacrifice?  Only a hard cushion to sit on!  In the same carriage with me there was a very conversable person—­a smart young man with flaming red hair.  When we took the omnibus at your station here, all the passengers got out in the town except two.  I was one exception, and the smart young man was the other.  When I stopped at your gate, the omnibus went on a few yards, and set down my fellow-traveler at the village inn.  My profession makes me sly.  I waited a little before I rang your bell; and, when I could do it without being seen, I crossed the road, and had a look at the inn.  There is a moon to-night; I was very careful.  The young man didn’t see me.  But I saw a head of flaming hair, and a pair of amiable blue eyes, over the blind of a window; and it happened to be the one window of the inn which commands a full view of your gate.  Mere suspicion, you will say!  I can’t deny it, and yet I have my reasons for suspecting.  Before I left London, one of my clerks followed me in a great hurry to the terminus, and caught me as I was opening the carriage door.  ‘We have just made a discovery,’ he said; ’you and Mrs. Linley are to be reckoned up.’  Reckoned up is, if you please, detective English for being watched.  My clerk might have repeated a false report, of course.  And my fellow-traveler might have come all the way from London to look out of the window of an inn, in a Cumberland village.  What do you think yourselves?”

It seemed to be easier to dispute the law than to dispute Mr. Sarrazin’s conclusions.

“Suppose I choose to travel abroad, and to take my child with me,” Mrs. Linley persisted, “who has any right to prevent me?”

Mr. Sarrazin reluctantly reminded her that the father had a right.  “No person—­not even the mother—­can take the child out of the father’s custody,” he said, “except with the father’s consent.  His authority is the supreme authority—­unless it happens that the law has deprived him of his privilege, and has expressly confided the child to the mother’s care.  Ha!” cried Mr. Sarrazin, twisting round in his chair and fixing his keen eyes on Mrs. Presty, “look at your good mother; she sees what I am coming to.”

“I see something more than you think,” Mrs. Presty answered.  “If I know anything of my daughter’s nature, you will find yourself, before long, on delicate ground.”

“What do you mean, mamma?”

Mrs. Presty had lived in the past age when persons occasionally used metaphor as an aid to the expression of their ideas.  Being called upon to explain herself, she did it in metaphor, to her own entire satisfaction.

“Our learned friend here reminds me, my dear Catherine, of a traveler exploring a strange town.  He takes a turning, in the confident expectation that it will reward him by leading him to some satisfactory result—­and he finds himself in a blind alley, or, as the French put it (I speak French fluently), in a cool de sack.  Do I make my meaning clear, Mr. Sarrazin?”