"No, Miss," Polly assented readily. After a pause she added: "I suppose you'd like me to go now? You won't be wanting your hair done to-night?"
"Certainly I wish you to stay. Is he—is M. Raoul outside?"
"I think so, Miss. Oh, yes—for certain he is."
"Then I must insist on your staying with me while I dismiss him."
"Very good, Miss. Would you wish me to stay here, or to come with you?"
Dorothea felt herself blushing, and her temper rose again. "For the moment, stay here. I will leave the door open and call you when you are wanted."
She passed into the boudoir and bent to the open window. At this corner the foundations of the house stood some feet lower than the slope out of which they had been levelled, and she looked down upon a glacis of smooth turf, capped by a glimmering parapet of Bath stone. Beyond stretched the moonlit park.
"M. Raoul!" she called, but scarcely above a whisper.
A figure crept out from the dark angle below and climbed to the parapet.
"Dorothea! Forgive me! Another night and no word with you—I could not bear it."