I have just learned of Andrée’s decision, and I think I need not tell you how it grieved me. Not only on your account, but on hers, I believe that a divorce would be a terrible mistake, and I beg you to oppose it resolutely. I beg of you, Alfred, not to consent to it. No one understands Andrée as I do, and I know that this would be the very worst thing possible for her.
She has consented to see you and I entreat you to come and talk it over with her. I trust to your deep affection for her, and to your humanity. I know that she can never be happy and safe with any one but you.
Will you come on Sunday, if convenient for you?
Always your friend,
Claudine Vincelle.
She stamped and sealed it, and lay down on the bed, to read, to try to read and to forget her bitter anxiety.
§ ii
Sunday came, and no word from him. And on Sunday evening Mr. Malloy appeared. Claudine was very much taken aback; he had never before come on Sunday, and she had very humanly taken it for granted that he never would. She hadn’t told Andrée that she expected Alfred; she had planned to take her by surprise, before she could adopt a difficult and dangerous mood. If he should come now! She sat upstairs in her room, in a state of tremulous agitation, looking out of her window, trying in vain to see the street through the fog that had risen, listening for his footfall, though what she could do to forestall him she didn’t know.
Outside on the porch Andrée and Malloy were sitting, well-wrapped, coat collars turned up against the thick, chill mist of that April night. Their hands were clasped, but they spoke very little. They were in a mood of sombre depression, not unknown to lovers. Now and then Claudine heard the sound of their voices, forlorn and detached; if it had been Alfred, she thought, how different it would have been! A continuous flow of talk, and retorts from Andrée, irritated perhaps, but certainly interested....
She fancied she heard a footstep on the hilly street; she opened her window softly and leaned out. The trees were dripping on the gravel drive; hoarse whistles sounded from the bay, and—yes, undoubtedly, that was the garden gate! A step on the porch, and Andrée’s voice—
“I want to see Mrs. Vincelle!”