CHAPTER XXXI
THE FINAL DISAPPOINTMENT
Lydie waited a few moments while her father's brisk steps died away along the stone-flagged corridors. In the silence of the evening, the quietude which rested on this distant portion of the palace, she could hear his brief word of command to the valet who had been stationed in the antechamber; then the Duke's quick, alert descent down the marble staircase, and finally the call for his coach oft repeated, when he reached the terrace and began skirting the building on his way to the main paved yard, where, no doubt, his horses were awaiting his return.
When everything in and around the palace seemed quiet again, Lydie rang for her maid.
"A dark hood and cloak," she ordered as soon as the girl appeared, and speaking very rapidly.
"Madame la Marquise goes out again?" asked the maid a little anxiously, seeing that the hour was late and she herself very sleepy.
"Only within the palace," replied Lydie. "Quick, girl! the cloak!"
Within two or three minutes she was enveloped from head to foot in a cloak of dark woollen material, that effectually hid the beautiful gown beneath. Then she bade the girl wait for her in her boudoir, and, not heeding the latter's anxious protestations, she walked quickly out of the room.
The corridors and reception halls were now quite deserted. Even from the main building of the palace, where the King himself was wont to sup copiously and long, there no longer came the faintest echo of revelry, of laughter or of music. The vast château built at the cost of a nation's heart's blood, kept up at the cost of her tears and her humiliation, now lay wrapped in sleep.
In this remote West Wing the silence was almost oppressive. From her own apartments Lydie could reach those occupied by milor, without going through the ante-chamber and corridors, where a few night-watchmen were always stationed. Thus she could pass unperceived; a dark, ghost-like figure, silent and swift, gliding through an enchanted castle, inhabited mayhap only by a sleeping beauty and her Court. From outside not a sound, save the occasional hoot of an owl or the flap of a bat's wings against the projecting masonry.