enough for my hurried journey to Fuentellato, had
been packed for days past, and we took the road.

"I knew that pursuit would not tarry, but I was satisfied that I had
made a good start, and I hoped to make my way through to Italy without
interference. When I first saw you at Calais I was seized with a
terrible fear, which was soon allayed; you did not look much like a
detective, and you were already my good friend when the real ruffian,
Falfani, came on board the train at Amiens."

[_Lady Claire Standish passed on next to describe her journey from
Basle to Lausanne, and the clever way in which she eluded the second
detective--matters on which the reader has been already informed._]

"On reaching Geneva I at once opened communications with Henriette. I
felt satisfied, now that I had come so far, it would be well that she
should join me, and that we should concert together as to our next
proceedings. Our first and principal aim was to retain the child at
all costs and against all comers. I had no precise knowledge as to
where we should be beyond the jurisdiction of the English law, but I
could not believe that the Divorce Court and its emissaries could
interfere with us in a remote Italian village. My real fear was of
Lord Blackadder. He was so bold and unscrupulous that, if the law
would not help him, he would try stratagem, or even force. We should
be really safe nowhere if we once came within his reach, and, the best
plan to keep out of his clutches was to hide our whereabouts from him.

"Fuentellato would not do, for although I do not believe he knew the
exact spot in which Henriette had taken refuge, he must have guessed
something from the direction of my journey, and that I was on my way
to join her. If he failed to intercept me _en route_, he would make
his way straight there. I had resolved he should not find us, but
where else should we go? Farther afield, if necessary to the very end
of the world. Lord Blackadder, we might be sure, would hunt high and
low to recover his lost heir, sparing no expense, neglecting no means.

"It was, however, essential to elude his agents, who were so near at
hand and likely to press me close. That was another reason for drawing
my sister to me. I had hit upon a cunning device, as I thought it, to
confuse and deceive my pursuers, to throw them on to a false scent,
lead them to follow a red herring, while the fox, free of the hunt,
took another line."

CHAPTER XVII.