Too late. A blow brought her to the ground. She had made no cry, and now she lay so still!
The watchman had fallen asleep again. In the early morning he remembered. The greyish golden dawn was creeping in, when he found her with two lions protecting, keeping guard over her, while another crouched snarling in a corner. There was no mark on her face.
The point of the stiletto which she had carried in her cloak had pierced her when she fell.
In a hotel near the Arc de Triomphe Alice Wingfield read the news. It was she who tenderly prepared the body for burial, who telegraphed to Gaston at Audierne, getting a reply from Jacques that he was not yet back from London. The next day Andree was found a quiet place in the cemetery at Montmartre.
In the evening Alice and her relative started for Audierne.
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On board the Fleur d’Orange Gaston struggled with the problem. There was one thought ever coming. He shut it out at this point, and it crept in at that. He remembered when two men, old friends, discovered that one, unknowingly, had been living with the wife of the other. There was one too many—the situation was impossible. The men played a game of cards to see which should die. But they did not reckon with the other factor. It was the woman who died.
Was not his own situation far worse? With his uncle living—but no, no, it was out of the question! Yet Ian Belward had been shameless, a sensualist, who had wrecked the girl’s happiness and his. He himself had done a mad thing in the eyes of the world, but it was more mad than wicked. Had this happened in the North with another man, how easily would the problem have been solved!
Go to his uncle and tell him that he must remove himself for ever from the situation? Demand it, force it? Impossible—this was Europe.
They arrived at Douarnenez. The diligence had gone. A fishing-boat was starting for Audierne. He decided to go by it. Breton fishermen are usually shy of storm to foolishness, and one or two of the crew urged the drunken skipper not to start, for there were signs of a south-west wind, too friendly to the Bay des Trepasses. The skipper was, however, cheerfully reckless, and growled down objection.