My Lady Rotha by Stanley J. Weyman — Read

I did not after that suffer the grass to grow under my feet. I went out, and with my own eyes searched the fields at the back, and every ditch and water-hole. I had the loss cried in the camp, my lady on her return offered a reward, we sent even to the nearer villages, we patrolled the roads, we omitted nothing that could by any chance avail us. Yet evening fell, and night, and found us still searching; and no nearer, as far as we could see, to success. The child was gone mysteriously. Left to play alone for two minutes in the stillness of the afternoon, he had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him.

Baffled, we began to ask, while Marie sat pale and brooding in a corner, or now and again stole to the door to listen, who could have taken him and with what motive? There were men and women in the camp capable of anything. It seemed probable to some that these had stolen the child for the sake of his clothes. Others suggested witchcraft. But in my own mind, I leaned to neither of these theories. I suspected, though I dared not utter the thought, that the general had done it. Without knowing how much of the story Count Hugo had confided to him, I took it as certain that the father had said enough to apprise him of the boy's value. And this being so, what more probable than that the general, whom I was prepared to credit with any atrocity, had taken instant steps to possess himself of the child?