“Perhaps,” she said, “I shall see you to-morrow morning.”
“I shall be here.” Then I added: “I could not help hearing you talk of moving elsewhere.”
She stood still in the middle of the room; she opened her lips to speak, shut them again, and ended by saying nothing more than:
“Yes, we talked of it. My mother wishes it. Good-night, Mr. Aycon.”
I bade her good-night, and she passed slowly through the door, which I closed behind her. I turned again to the fire, saying:
“What would the duchess think of that?”
I did not even know what I thought of it myself; of one thing only I felt sure—-that what I had heard of Marie Delhasse was not all that there was to learn about her.
I was lodged in a large room on the third floor, and when I awoke the bright sun beamed on the convent where, as I presume, Mme. de Saint-Maclou lay, and on the great Mount beyond it in the distance. I have never risen with a more lively sense of unknown possibilities in the day before me. These two women who had suddenly crossed my path, and their relations to the pale puffy-cheeked man at the little château, might well produce results more startling than had seemed to be offered even by such a freak as the original expedition undertaken by Gustave de Berensac and me. And now Gustave had fallen away and I was left to face the thing alone. For face it I must. My promise to the duchess bound me: had it not I doubt whether I should have gone; for my interest was not only in the duchess.
I had my coffee upstairs, and then, putting on my hat, went down for a stroll. So long as the duke did not come to Avranches, I could show my face boldly—and was not he busy preparing for his guests? I crossed the threshold of the hotel.
Just at the entrance stood Marie Delhasse; opposite her was a thickset fellow, neatly dressed and wearing mutton-chop whiskers. As I came out I raised my hat. The man appeared not to notice me, though his eyes fell on me for a moment. I passed quickly by—in fact, as quickly as I could—for it struck me at once that this man must be Lafleur, and I did not want him to give the duke a description of the unknown gentleman who was staying at Avranches. Yet, as I went, I had time to hear Marie’s slow musical voice say: