'"Oh! I will sleep in the stable, or anywhere, madame, provided you can accommodate mademoiselle ma sœur," interrupted Lucien, colouring at the necessary falsehood which he told for the first time in all his blameless life, but it was one to protect me.
'Whether the landlady believed him or not I cannot say; but there was a strange and saucy twinkle in her eyes, and while in attendance upon us she provoked me by an air of discretion she adopted; from past experience apparently she was far too discreet to make sudden irruptions on our tête-à-tête evening, however innocent it was, in outward seeming as she no doubt thought, and Lucien twisted his dark moustache angrily, as he muttered,
'"Sapristi! this hag does not live mid-way between Brussels and Antwerp for nothing."
'"Darkness must be closing over Antwerp now, and all the lamps in the Avenue du Commerce will be lighted throughout its spacious length and breadth," was then my thought; "what would Madame Hoboken be thinking and saying of my non-appearance? Had Monsieur Hoboken returned by train from Flushing? Doubtless he had. Where would they be anxiously and angrily suspecting I was?" If they supposed me to be remaining—as I had more than once done if a night proved wet—when visiting here at the Beguinage all would be well; but the morning might ere long produce untoward revelations, and I wept as if my heart would break when once again I was left alone, as my poor Lucien betook him to sleep in a loft above the stables, deploring the malheur in which he had involved us both; but he had no one to scold him save his colonel if he missed a parade, while my life and whole future might be made a burden to me.
'Anyway, I was, from a Belgian point of view especially, in a dreadfully false position. 'There could have been no mistake as to the hour of the fatal train, though all public clocks in Belgium strike the hour half an hour beforehand, thus at half-past eleven the clock announced twelve; and luckily for me Lucien was in plain clothes, not en grande tenue as he usually was, with sword and epaulettes on; consequently he would be less remarked, and fortunately the rain fell heavily that night, which might account for my remaining for shelter at the Beguinage.
'When morning came my spirits rose a little, and I was up betimes to meet the early train. How lovely looked the opening summer day. The grass in the fields, the herbs and flowers in the gardens all glittered in the rays of the sun, as if the dew that moistened them had been diamonds, and the tops of the firs seemed edged with silver. A golden and purple glow filled all the eastern sky, and between it and earth the vapours of night were floating. The birds were awake, and the bees hummed and the butterflies flitted about.
'To me the country seemed new and charming, and its continuity of horizontal lines, each rising beyond the other to the level horizon, where in the distance rose the spires of Antwerp, gave a sense of vastness and novelty.
'In different carriages Lucien and I returned to the city. We parted with but a glance at the station, and with a palpitating heart I sought my temporary home in the Avenue du Commerce—my mind a prey to dire misgivings, full of the stolen summer day at Elewyt, the lost train, the cottage amid the pastures, and Madame Hoboken to be confronted!
'My innocent secret made a very coward of me. Never had I told a falsehood, and I felt as if I would rather die than tell one now. I had done nothing to be ashamed of, and yet the inferences were terrible, especially in society constituted as it is in Belgium.
'"You were, of course, at the Beguinage?" said madame, interrogatively, as she came in from early mass.