It was at eight o'clock in the evening that the explanation came, from a source as natural as it was unexpected. A letter was delivered by the postman for Madame de Clericy, who at once recognized her husband's unsteady handwriting. She crossed the room, and stood beside me while she opened the envelope. Lucille, seeing the action, frowned, as I thought. I was still under displeasure—still learning that the better sort of woman will not forgive deception so long as she herself is its motive, as cheap cynics would have us believe.
Madame read the letter with that self-repression which was habitual to her, and made me ever wonder what her youth had been. Lucille and I watched her in silence.
"There," she said, and gave me the letter to pass to Lucille, who received it from my hand without taking her eyes from her mother's face. Then I quitted the room, leaving the two women alone. Madame followed me presently to the study, and there gave me the Vicomte's last letter to read. It was short and breathed of affection.
"Do not seek for me," it ran. "I cannot bear my great misfortunes, and the world will, perhaps, be less cruel to two women who have no protector."
Madame handed me the envelope, which bore the Passy postmark, and I read her thoughts easily enough.
I saw John Turner again that evening, also Alphonse Giraud, who had called at the Hôtel Clericy during the day. With these gentlemen I set off the next morning for Passy, taking passage in one of those little river steamers which we had all seen a thousand times, without thinking of a nearer acquaintance.
"This is gay," cried Alphonse, on whom the sunshine had always an enlivening effect, as we sped along. "This is what you call sport—n'est ce pas? For you are a maritime race, is it not so, Howard?"
"Yes," answered I, "we are a maritime race."
"And figure to yourself this is the first time that I am afloat on anything larger than a ferry-boat."
During our short trip Alphonse fully decided that if his fortune should be recovered he would buy a yacht.