“You ask where your mother is. Well, then, where is the necklace?”
Marie drew back as though she had been struck; yet her grip did not leave my arm, but tightened on it.
“The necklace?” she gasped.
And the duchess, using the most scornful words she knew and giving a short little laugh, said.
“Your mother has levanted with the necklace. Of course you didn’t know!”
Thus, if Marie Delhasse had been stern to the Duke of Saint-Maclou when he lay dying, his wife avenged him to the full and more. For at the words, at the sight of the duchess’ disdainful face and of my troubled look, Marie uttered a cry and reeled and sank half-fainting in my arms.
“Oh, drive on!” said the Duchess of Saint-Maclou in a wearied tone.
And away they drove, leaving us two alone. Nor did Marie speak again, unless it were in distressed incoherent protests, till, an hour later, I delivered her into the charge of the Mother Superior at the convent by the side of the bay. And the old lady bade me wait till she saw Marie comfortably bestowed, and then she returned to me and we walked side by side for a while in the little burying-ground, she listening to an outline of my story. Perhaps I, in a lover’s zeal, spoke harshly of the duchess; for the old lady put her hand upon my arm and said to me:
“It was not for losing the diamonds that her heart was sore—poor silly child!”
And, inasmuch as I doubted whether my venerable friend thought that it was for the loss of her husband either, I held my peace.