At eleven in the forenoon, the duke left the house to go to the Hotel de Ville to keep an appointment that would detain him until three in the afternoon.
Valerie knew all about this appointment, and had therefore fixed the hour of noon as the safest time for her interview with the count.
Twelve o'clock, therefore, found her dressed in her deepest mourning, and seated in her private drawing-room, awaiting the advent of her most dreaded visitor, Waldemar de Volaski.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
A SENTENCE OF BANISHMENT.
Valerie, in an agony of terror, waited for her expected visitor.
Did she love him, then?
Ah, no! Horror at the position in which she found herself so filled her soul as to leave no room for any softer emotion. She loved no one in the world, not even herself; she wished for nothing on earth but death, and only her religious faith, or her superstitious fears, restrained her from laying sacrilegious hands upon her own life.
While watching for her dreaded guest she bitterly communed with herself.