"Dead!" she answered fiercely. "Torn to pieces, we believe, one night in a house near Moscow. May it be so!"
She was silent for a moment, as though engaged in prayer. Bernadine spoke no more of these things. He talked to her kindly, keeping up always his rôle of respectful, but hopeful, admirer.
"You will come again soon?" he begged, when at last she insisted upon going.
She hesitated.
"It is so difficult," she murmured. "If my husband knew——"
Bernadine laughed and touched her fingers caressingly.
"Need one tell him?" he whispered. "You see, I trust you. I pray that you will come."
Bernadine was a man rarely moved towards emotion of any sort; yet even he was conscious of a certain sense of excitement as he stood looking out upon the Embankment from the windows of Paul Hagon's sitting-room a few days later. Madame was sitting on the settee. It was for her answer to a question that he waited.
"Monsieur," she said at last, turning slowly towards him, "it must be 'No.' Indeed I am sorry, for you have been very charming to me, and without you I should have been dull. But to come to your rooms and dine alone to-night, it is impossible."