Then he added aloud,—
“But I shall see him. I have determined to accompany the marchioness to Sauveterre. When will you leave?”
“Nothing keeps me here in Paris. I have done all that could be done, and I might return this evening. But I am really too tired. I think I shall to-morrow take the train at 10.45.”
“If you do so, we shall travel in company; you understand? To-morrow at ten o’clock at the Orleans station. We shall reach Sauveterre by midnight.”
XX.
When the Marchioness de Boiscoran, on the day of her departure for Paris, had gone to see her son, Dionysia had asked her to let her go with her. She resisted, and the young girl did not insist.
“I see they are trying to conceal something from me,” she said simply; “but it does not matter.”
And she had taken refuge in the sitting-room; and there, taking her usual seat, as in the happy days when Jacques spent all his evenings by her side, she had remained long hours immovable, looking as if, with her mind’s eye, she was following invisible scenes far away.
Grandpapa Chandore and the two aunts were indescribably anxious. They knew their Dionysia, their darling child, better than she knew herself, having nursed and watched her for twenty years. They knew every expression of her face, every gesture, every intonation of voice, and could almost read her thoughts in her features.
“Most assuredly Dionysia is meditating upon something very serious,” they said. “She is evidently calculating and preparing for a great resolution.”