The next news of her," I pursued, "was
that she had been spirited away by some sly old kidnapper. I almost
suspected Kranich."
"The old kidnapper," said Joliet, laughing heartily at the compliment,
"is the man now talking to you. I wanted to take Francine to her
godmother. I turned the key in the door at Carlsruhe, set the
geographers all upon their travels to explore new worlds, and we have
been living ever since quite close to Madame Kranich, who treats me
like an emperor."
It was easy now to understand why the young Kranich, as soon as he
could identify me as a protector of Francine, had been thrown off his
guard and tempted to attack me with his clumsy abuse. It was not very
mysterious, even, why he had wished all handsome girls to be drowned
in the Rhine. For him a pretty damsel was simply a rival in trade.
[Illustration: READING THE CONTRACT.]
Had I stopped at Wildbad with the party of orpheonists, I should have
encountered rather sooner the fatal beauties of Mary Ashburleigh. It
was to meet her that Fortnoye had paused at that resort, considering
her introduction to Frau Kranich almost indispensable to the success
of his scheme. She had no hesitation in following the protecting angel
of her lost child. "My object in this journey is a happy marriage,"
she had told me when to my unworthy care her guardianship had been
transferred. If I timorously suspected the marriage to be her own,
whose fault was it but mine? My heart leaped up at the successive
stages of this recital, its hopes confirmed by every additional fact:
the Dark Ladye's hand was certainly free.
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