In the autumn Haidee passed her exams, brilliantly, getting honours with her "Bacho" and a first-class diplôme. It was a great achievement, and Val was deeply pleased, knowing how the news would gratify Westenra. She wrote at once sending Haidee a beautiful gift in celebration of the success, and asking when she should come to Paris and fetch her South. For by this time she had discovered that she could trust Marietta with Bran, and had no fear of leaving him for a few days.
But Haidee wrote back coldly, barely acknowledging the gift, and stating that she wished to stay on at the Lycée working at her music and painting until December, when Celine Lorrain and her father were coming down to Marseilles to see the last of Rupert, who, having finished his two years' military service, was going out to Morocco. Val made no objection to this plan, but her heart was chilled at this open preference for strangers. The Lorrains were good friends, of course, but after all she and Haidee had been through poverty and sorrow and sickness together. She looked upon the girl, if not as her child, at least as her younger sister. Was it possible that she still cherished resentment about Sacha? At any rate Val was too proud to make any further advances. She knew Haidee to be one of those natures that are not softened by kindly advances, but rather inclined to hold the advancers in contempt for their pains--a fault of youth that passes with a wider knowledge and experience of humanity.
When she had gone to say good-bye to Haidee before leaving Paris, it was with the intention of telling her the wonderful news about the necklace, and also as much as was necessary of the return and death of Valdana without exactly revealing the identity of the latter and his relationship to herself. However, Haidee's bleak manner had nipped untimely in the bud the good intention. Val could not afford to take into her confidence any one who was not entirely sympathetic, and though she did not believe that Haidee would be capable of deliberate disloyalty, yet she realised that the latter, in spite of the grown-up airs, was only a child, and as such liable to be swayed by moods in which she might fling a confidence to the four winds, and repent her action when it was too late. And the secret of Horace Valdana's resurrection had not been kept these many years for it to be lightly betrayed by a child. As for the matter of the fortune gained by the sale of the Comfort necklace, Val had been obliged to strangle her longing to tell Haidee all about it, for how could she suppose that any one who showed such an almost offensive indifference to her affairs was really burning with curiosity to know the meaning of her suddenly changed circumstances? Haidee hid her feelings well. Thus it came to pass that a secret which Val would gladly have shared and felt redoubled pleasure in the sharing, had been kept of necessity to herself. She had not even told Rupert, for she felt that apart from the children no one else before Westenra had a right to know. And since Westenra showed no further interest in her--well, it was no one's affair.
When the week came for the expected arrival of Haidee, what was Val's intense surprise to receive a letter from her saying that she should not be coming down with the Lorrains. For one thing, she wrote, General Lorrain was ill and Celine could not leave him, so that Rupert would be travelling alone. For another, she added casually, as if prompted by an afterthought, "Garry is in Paris and we are going about a great deal together. It is possible that he may come down South--to see Bran before he returns to New York. But this is not quite certain. I will let you know later."
Westenra in Europe for the first time for four years, and this was the way he notified her! Val was stricken to the soul. Never had she so acutely realised the position to which he had relegated her. A mere minder of his child, and in some respects not so good as that, for a nurse or governess would at least have received kindly and courteous letters from her employer. This casual second-hand message seemed to be the cruellest of any of the blows her heart had suffered since first she threw in her lot with Garrett Westenra. And at first she sank under it. It was the little more that is too much. But presently with some of her old courage she braced herself to the new situation. If she had got to meet Westenra she would be ready for it. She had not trained her soul for years to no avail. She had not lived with austerity, stood apart from temptation, fought spiritual battles, for nothing. A strong rock was at her back for the hour of need, a rock she had been forming for herself in all the years since she last saw Westenra. She would be ready when he came to receive him with dignity and strength untainted by resentment or any petty feeling.
But before that time Rupert the blue-eyed and ardent, in whom she recognised so much of her own nature, came bursting into the Calendar of Little Days. She welcomed him with all the pleasure a woman feels in seeing those whose affection for her is sure and unquestioning, who doubt not her loyalty and pure intention.
His light-heartedness seemed to have waned a little, and his pleasure at having attained his majority and freedom to depart where he listed was not so great as Val had expected. He explained the reason succinctly.
"It is all very well to be rich and free, Val, but I am very alone in the world." His eyes resting in hers took an expression of intense melancholy.
"That is the curse the gods lay upon us wanderers, Rupert," she said sadly.
"'Lover of the Lone Trail, the Lone Trail waits for you!'