She rose to her feet and walked up and down. Her eyes were blazing.
“He did not leave Paris!” she cried.
Mme. de Wimphen did not dare to interrupt the words that followed, jerked-out sentences, measured by dreadful pauses in between. After every break the deep notes of her voice sank lower and lower. There was something awful about the last words.
“He has seen me, constantly, and I have not known it.—A look, taken by stealth, every day, helps him to live.—Louisa, you do not know!—He is dying.—He wants to say good-bye to me. He knows that my husband has gone away for several days. He will be here in a moment. Oh! I shall die: I am lost.—Listen, Louisa, stay with me!—I am afraid!”
“But my husband knows that I have been dining with you; he is sure to come for me,” said Mme. de Wimphen.
“Well, then, before you go I will send him away. I will play the executioner for us both. Oh me! he will think that I do not love him any more—And that letter of his! Dear, I can see those words in letters of fire.”
A carriage rolled in under the archway.
“Ah!” cried the Marquise, with something like joy in her voice, “he is coming openly. He makes no mystery of it.”
“Lord Grenville,” announced the servant.
The Marquise stood up rigid and motionless; but at the sight of Arthur’s white face, so thin and haggard, how was it possible to keep up the show of severity? Lord Grenville saw that Julie was not alone, but he controlled his fierce annoyance, and looked cool and unperturbed. Yet for the two women who knew his secret, his face, his tones, the look in his eyes had something of the power attributed to the torpedo. Their faculties were benumbed by the sharp shock of contact with his horrible pain. The sound of his voice set Julie’s heart beating so cruelly that she could not trust herself to speak; she was afraid that he would see the full extent of his power over her. Lord Grenville did not dare to look at Julie, and Mme. de Wimphen was left to sustain a conversation to which no one listened. Julie glanced at her friend with touching gratefulness in her eyes to thank her for coming to her aid.