The girl looked stricken. She leaned against the wall, once more white as a statue, once more terrified.
"Angelot said—but it is not possible!" she whispered very low.
"Angelot very sensibly said that he did not care for you. Under those circumstances I think you are punished enough; and I will not insist on knowing how you came to deceive yourself so far. But I advise you not to spend any more time staring at that line of poplars," said Madame de Sainfoy. "Learn not to take in earnest what other people mean in play; your country cousin admires you, no doubt, but he knows more of the world than you do, most idiotic and ill-behaved girl!"
As she said the last words she rose and crossed the room to the door, throwing them scornfully over her shoulder. Then she passed out, and Hélène, planted there, heard the key grind in the lock.
She was a prisoner in her room; but this did not greatly trouble her. She went back to the window, leaned her arms on the sill, gazed once more at La Marinière, its trees motionless in the afternoon sunlight, thought of the old room as she had first seen it that moonlit evening with its sweet air of peace and home, thought of the noble, delicate face of Angelot's mother, thought of Angelot himself as the candle-light fell upon him, of the first wonderful look, the electric current which changed the world for herself and him. And then all that had happened since, all that her mother did not and never must know. Was it really possible, could it be believed that he meant nothing, that he did not love her after all? No, it could not be believed. And yet how to be sure, without seeing him again?
Ah, well, for some people life must be all sadness, and Héléne had long believed herself one of these. Angelot's love seemed to have proved her wrong, but now the leaf in her book was turned back again, and she found herself at the old place. Not quite that either, for the old deadness had been waked into an agony of pain. Angelot false! Hell must certainly be worse to bear after a taste of Paradise.
She laid her fair head down on her arms at the open window, high in the bare wall. An hour passed by, and still she sat there in a kind of hopeless lethargy. She did not hear a gentle tapping at the door, nor the trying of the latch by some one who could not get in. But a minute later she started and exclaimed when a dark head was suddenly nestled against hers, her cheek kissed by rosy lips, her name whispered lovingly.
"Oh, little Riette!" she cried. "Where did you come from, child? Was the key in the door?"
"No, there was no key," Riette whispered. "You are locked in, ma belle; but never mind. I know my way about Lancilly. I am going home now, and I wanted to see you. They will ask me how you are looking."
Hélène blushed and almost laughed. She looked eagerly into the child's face.