“La, Tracy! Will you have no sense of decency?” she cried. “I suppose,” she sneered, “you think to kidnap the girl?”

“Exactly,” he nodded.

She gasped at the effrontery of it.

“Heavens, are you mad? Kidnap a lady! This is no peasant girl, remember. Tracy, Tracy, pray do not be foolish! How can you kidnap her?”

“That, my dear, is a point which I have not yet decided. But I do not anticipate much trouble.”

“But goodness gracious me! has the child no protectors? No brothers? No father?”