“It won’t do any good,” grumbled Chamberlain.  “We’ll have to catch him and choke him with our own hands, if it ever gets done.”

Nevertheless, they left nothing to chance.  Telegraph and telephone were brought into requisition, and within twenty-four hours after the disappearance every station on the railroad, as well as every village along the coast, was warned to arrest the fugitive if he came that way.  Mr. Chamberlain took the white motor and went off on long, mysterious journeys, coming back only to go into secret conclave with Aleck, or mysteriously to rush off again.

Aleck Van Camp stayed at home, keeping a dog-watch on Melanie and Madame Reynier, whether they were at the Hillside or at the old red house.  Now that the purposes of the Frenchman had been made clear, and since he was still at large, the world was no safe place for unattended women.  Aleck pondered deeply over the situation.

“Is your amiable cousin’s henchman a man to be scared off by our recent little encounter, do you think?” he asked of Melanie.

She considered.  “He might be scared, easily enough.  But I know well that he has a contempt for the usual machinery of the law.  He has evaded it so many times that he thinks it an easy matter.”

Aleck smiled whimsically.  “I don’t wonder at that, if he has had many experiences like the last.”

“He boasts that he can bribe anybody.”

“Ah, so!  But how much rope would the duke give him, do you think, on a pinch?”

“All the rope he cares to take.  Stephen’s protection is all-powerful in Krolvetz; and elsewhere Chatelard depends, as I have said, on his wits.”

“But there must be some limit to the duke’s stretch of conscience!”

Melanie’s eyes took on their far-away look.  “Perhaps there is,” she said at last, “but who can guess where that limit is?  Besides, all he asks of his henchmen is results.  He never inquires as to methods.”

“Well, what do you think is the exact result Duke Stephen wants, in this case?”

“He wants me either to return to Krolvetz and marry his brother, or—­”

Melanie’s hesitation was prolonged.

“Or—­what?’

“Or to disappear so completely that there will be no question of my return.  You see, it’s a peculiar case.  If I marry without his consent—­”

“Which you are about to do—­” cut in Aleck.

“I simply forfeit my estates and they go into the public treasury, where they will be strictly accounted for.  But if I marry Lorenzo—­”

“Which is impossible—­”

“Then the money goes into the family, of course, as my dot.  Or—­or, if I should die—­in that case Stephen inherits the money.  And there is no doubt but that Stephen needs money.”

Aleck pondered for several minutes, while grave shadows threatened his face.  But presently his smiling, unquenchable good temper came to the surface, and he gleefully tucked Melanie’s hand under his arm.