An hour later he passed Delia and her father on the road to Douarnenez. He did not recognise them, but Delia, seeing him, shrank away in a corner of the carriage, trembling.
Jacques had wished to go to London with Gaston, but had been denied. He was to care for the horses. When he saw his master ride down over the place, waving a hand back towards him, he came in and said to Andree:
“Madame, there is trouble—I do not know what. But I once said I would never leave him, wherever he go or whatever he did. Well, I never will leave him—or you, madame—no.”
“That is right, that is right,” she said earnestly; “you must never leave him, Jacques. He is a good man.”
When Jacques had gone she shut herself up in her room. She was gathering all her life into the compass of an hour. She felt but one thing: the ruin of her happiness and Gaston’s.
“He is a good man,” she said over and over to herself. And the other—Ian Belward? All the barbarian in her was alive.
The next morning she started for Paris, saying to Jacques and Annette that she would return in four days.
CHAPTER XVIII. “RETURN, O SHULAMITE!”
Almost the first person that Gaston recognised in London was Cluny Vosse. He had been to Victoria Station to see a friend off by the train, and as he was leaving, Gaston and he recognised each other. The lad’s greeting was a little shy until he saw that Gaston was cool and composed as usual—in effect, nothing had happened. Cluny was delighted, and opened his mind: