It was a little difficult to reconcile utmost respect of movement and demeanour with the endeavour to open the door against which Madame la Marquise was still standing. However, everything that was deferential and correct was possible to Monsieur Achille; he fitted the key in the lock and the next moment had thrown the door wide open, whilst he himself stood immediately aside to enable Madame la Marquise to enter.
Four candles were burning in one of the candelabra; milor had evidently forgotten to extinguish them. Everything else in the room was perfectly tidy. On the secrétaire there were two or three heavy books similar to those Monsieur Durand usually carried about with him when he had to interview milor, also the inkpot and sand-well, with two or three quills methodically laid on a silver tray. One window must have been open behind the drawn curtains, for the heavy damask hangings waved gently in the sudden current of air, caused by the opening of the door. The candles too, flickered weirdly in the draught. In the centre of the room was the armchair on which Lydie had sat a while ago, the cushion of red embroidery which milor had put to her back, and below the little footstool covered in gold brocade on which her foot had rested . . . a while ago.
And beside the secrétaire his own empty chair, and on the table the spot where his hand had rested, white and slightly tremulous, when she proffered her self-accusation.
"Milor?" she murmured inquiringly, turning glowing eyes, dilated with the intensity of disappointment and despair on the impassive face of Achille, "milor . . . ? where is milor?"
"Milor has been gone some little time, Madame la Marquise," replied Achille.
"Gone? Whither?"
"I do not know, Madame la Marquise . . . Milor did not tell me . . . Two gentlemen called to see him at about ten o'clock; as soon as they had gone milor asked for his outdoor clothes and Hector booted and spurred him . . . whilst I dressed his hair and tied his cravat . . . Milor has been gone about half an hour, I think."
"Enough . . . that will do!"
That is all that she contrived to say. This final disappointment had been beyond the endurance of her nerves. Physically now she completely broke down, a mist gathered before her eyes, the candles seemed to flicker more and more weirdly until their lights assumed strange ghoul-like shapes which drew nearer to her and nearer; faces in the gloom grinned at her and seemed to mock, the walls of the room closed in around her, her senses reeled, her very brain felt as if it throbbed with pain, and without a cry or moan, only with one long sigh of infinite weariness, she sank lifeless to the ground.