His grace distinctly started.  He almost dropped the canvas bag.

“You saw the duchess just now, Ivor!  When?”

The duke was evidently moved.  Mr. Dacre was stirred to languid curiosity.  “I can’t say I clocked it.  Perhaps half an hour ago; perhaps a little more.”

“Half an hour ago!  Are you sure?  Where did you see her?”

Mr. Dacre wondered.  The Duchess of Datchet could scarcely have been eloping in broad daylight.  Moreover, she had not yet been married a year.  Everyone knew that she and the duke were still as fond of each other as if they were not man and wife.  So, although the duke, for some cause or other, was evidently in an odd state of agitation, Mr. Dacre saw no reason why he should not make a clean breast of all he knew.

“She was going like blazes in a hansom cab.”

“In a hansom cab?  Where?”

“Down Waterloo Place.”

“Was she alone?”

Mr. Dacre reflected.  He glanced at the duke out of the corners of his eyes.  His languid utterance became a positive drawl.

“I rather fancy that she wasn’t.”

“Who was with her?”

“My dear fellow, if you were to offer me the bank I couldn’t tell you.”

“Was it a man?”

Mr. Dacre’s drawl became still more pronounced.

“I rather fancy that it was.”

Mr. Dacre expected something.  The duke was so excited.  But he by no means expected what actually came.

“Ivor, she’s been kidnaped!”

Mr. Dacre did what he had never been known to do before within the memory of man—­he dropped his eyeglass.

“Datchet!”

“She has!  Some scoundrel has decoyed her away, and trapped her.  He’s already sent me a lock of her hair, and he tells me that if I don’t let him have five hundred pounds in gold by half-past five he’ll let me have her little finger.”

Mr. Dacre did not know what to make of his grace at all.  He was a sober man—­it couldn’t be that!  Mr. Dacre felt really concerned.

“I’ll call a cab, old man, and you’d better let me see you home.”

Mr. Dacre half raised his stick to hail a passing hansom.  The duke caught him by the arm.

“You ass!  What do you mean?  I am telling you the simple truth.  My wife’s been kidnaped.”

Mr. Dacre’s countenance was a thing to be seen—­and remembered.

“Oh!  I hadn’t heard that there was much of that sort of thing about just now.  They talk of poodles being kidnaped, but as for duchesses—­You’d really better let me call that cab.”

“Ivor, do you want me to kick you?  Don’t you see that to me it’s a question of life and death?  I’ve been in there to get the money.”  His grace motioned toward the bank.  “I’m going to take it to the scoundrel who has my darling at his mercy.  Let me but have her hand in mine again, and he shall continue to pay for every sovereign with tears of blood until he dies.”