It was growing late when the door opened at last. A figure stood a moment upon the threshold, then entered, moving with a quick, light tread that might have been the tread of a woman. In the darkness it reached her, bent over her.
"Ah, pauvre petite!" said a soft voice, a voice so full of compassion that it thrilled straight to her silent heart and made it beat again. "All alone with your grief! You permit me to intrude myself, no?"
She turned and felt up towards him with an icy hand. "Bertie!" she said.
"You—might have come before!"
He knelt swiftly down beside her, pressing the little trembling fingers against his neck to give them warmth. "But you are so cold!" he said. "You must not lie here any more."
"Why not?" she said dully. "I don't think it matters, does it?"
"But of course!" he made quick rejoinder. "When you suffer we suffer also. Also"—he paused an instant—"Mr. Mordaunt awaits you, petite. Will you not go to him?"
She shivered. "Need I, Bertie? I don't want to."
It was the cry of a child—a child in distress—plunged for the first time in the bitter waters of grief, turning instinctively to the friend of childhood for comfort. "I don't want anyone but you," she said piteously. "You understand. You loved him—and Trevor didn't."
"Oh, but, Christine—" Bertrand began.
"No, he didn't!" she maintained, with sudden vehemence. "I always knew he didn't. He put up with him for my sake; but he never loved him. He never noticed his pretty little ways. Once—once"—she began to sob—"it was on our wedding-day—he slapped him—for chasing a cat! My sweet wee Cinders!"