Devil's Cub Part IV

While the couple are in the inn, another English visitor arrives. It is Frederick Comyn, the young man who has fallen in love with Juliana. He is going to Paris to persuade Juliana to marry him. Frederick is a rather stuffy young man but kind hearted. He does not speak much French and Mary sees him and offers to help. When he finds out she is with Vidal, it emerges that Juliana and Mary were at school together years ago and were good friends. Vidal tells him that he is going to marry Mary when they get to Paris. Mary however is secretly determined to find some way of avoiding this, thinking that if they get to Paris, perhaps Juliana will help her. Vidal tells Mary that since Juliana is in Paris, he may place her in the house where her friend is staying, with a cousin of theirs, whom he calls Tante Elisabeth. Then he can pay court to her and when he finds an English clergyman they can get married quietly. Mary goes along with this but she's not happy. Back in England, Mrs Challoner finds out that Mary has gone off to play a joke on Vidal, but has not come back. She goes to see Leonie, who is in London, and tells her that Vidal is going to have to marry her daughter. Leonie is shocked but keeps her calm and asks why Vidal would have run off with Mary, when he was, by Mrs Challoner's account, flirting with Sophia. She wonders privately if Mary is a scheming girl who eloped with Vidal in hopes that he would marry her rather than her sister, but she gets an uneasy feeling, discussing the situation with Fanny, that her son might have chosen to take Mary away in an angry mood.. and she fears that as the girl comes from a well do to family, they may have to accept her as his wife.