"I didn't mean that. I'm afraid of what will happen when he finds out how he has been—how we have been played upon, tricked, deceived—what a light we have been placed in. You don't know, you can't even imagine, how he has set his heart on—what he wished to occur. I am afraid he will do something terrible when he knows. I am afraid he will kill Captain Stewart."
"Which," observed Ste. Marie, "would be an excellent solution of the problem. But, of course, we mustn't let it happen. What can be done?"
"We mustn't let him know the truth," said the girl, "until Arthur is gone, and until Captain Stewart is gone too. He is terrible when he's angry. We must keep the truth from him until he can do no harm. It will be bad enough even then, for I think it will break his heart."
Ste. Marie remembered that there was something she did not know, and he told her about his interview with Richard Hartley, and about their arrangement for the rescue—if it should be necessary—on that very night.
She nodded her head over it, but for a long time after he had finished she did not speak. Then she said—
"I am glad, I suppose. Yes, since it has to be done I suppose I am glad that it is to come at once." She looked up at Ste. Marie with shadowy inscrutable eyes.
"And so, monsieur," said she, "it is at an end—all this." She made a little gesture which seemed to sweep the park and gardens.
"So we go out of each other's lives as abruptly as we entered them. Well——" She had continued to look at him, but she saw the man's face turn white, and she saw something come into his eyes which was like intolerable pain. Then she looked away.
Ste. Marie said her name twice, under his breath, in a sort of soundless cry, but he said no more, and after a moment she went on—
"Even so, I am glad that at last we know each other—for what we are.... I should have been sorry to go on thinking you ... what I thought before.... And I could not have borne it, I'm afraid, to have you think ... what you thought of me ... when I came to know.... I'm glad we understand at last."