"You must return by way of Paris, though it is longer than by Basle and
Laon. Mr. Mountjoy, I know, will send you the money you want. He has
told me as much. 'I have done with Lady Harry,' he said. 'Her movements
no longer concern me, though I can never want interest in what she
does. But since the girl is right to stick to her mistress, I will send
her the money--not as a loan to be paid back by Iris, but as a gift
from myself.' "Therefore, my dear Fanny, stop in Paris for one night at least, and
learn what has been done if you can. Find out the nurse, and ask her
what really happened. With the knowledge that you already possess, it
will be hard, indeed, if we cannot arrive at the truth. There must be
people who supplied things to the cottage--the restaurant, the
pharmacien, the laundress. See them all--you know them already, and
we will put the facts together. As for finding her ladyship, that will
depend entirely upon herself. I shall expect you back in about a week.
If anything happens here I shall be able to tell you when you arrive.
"Yours affectionately, L. Vimpany."
This letter exactly coincided with Fanny's own views. The doctor was
now gone. She was pretty certain that he was not going to remain alone
in the cottage; and the suburb of Passy, though charming in many ways,
is not exactly the place for a man of Dr. Vimpany's temperament. She
would stay a day, or even two days or more, if necessary, at Passy. She
would make those inquiries.
The second letter, which reached her the same day, was from Mr.
Mountjoy. He told her what he had told Mrs. Vimpany: he would give her
the money, because he recognised the spirit of fidelity which caused
Fanny to go first to Paris and then to Berne.
But he could not pretend to any right to interference in the affairs of
Lord and Lady Harry Norland. He enclosed a mandat postal for a
hundred and twenty-five francs, which he hoped would be sufficient for
her immediate wants.
She started on her return-journey on the same day--namely, Saturday. On
Sunday evening she was in a pension at Passy, ready to make those
inquiries. The first person whom she sought out was the rentier--the
landlord of the cottage. He was a retired tradesman--one who had made
his modest fortune in a charcuterie and had invested it in house
property. Fanny told him that she had been lady's-maid to Lady Harry
Norland, in the recent occupancy of the cottage, and that she was
anxious to know her present address.