‘No, sir, I do not. I never even heard of such a sisterhood,’ replied the lady, resolutely.
‘I must ask you to pardon me, then. But it is a most wonderful likeness. I am deeply disappointed,’ said Cyril, allowing the lady to pass, with a respectful bow.
He was more than disappointed, he was mystified. In spite of the lady’s assertion he could not bring himself to believe that hers was not the face which he had seen by his sick bed in those long hours of languor and prostration, when he had nothing to do but watch his nurse’s kindly countenance, and listen to her friendly talk.
Yet, if this was his nurse, why should she deny herself to him? Was that one of the rules of her order? Was the order a kind of masonic association in good works?—a secret band of holy women, who disavowed their benevolent deeds after they were done?
CHAPTER XXII.
FAIR STILL, BUT FAIR FOR NO ONE SAVING ME.
Cyril would have liked to follow the mysterious lady, but that would have been too discourteous; so he wandered listlessly in the streets of St. Malo for another hour or so, not knowing what to do with himself, and finally came to a standstill at an office on the outskirts of the town, whence a diligence started every afternoon for Dol.
‘Dol,’ he said. ‘What is Dol? I was never at Dol. I wonder if there is anything worth seeing at Dol, and if it be possible that Beatrix can have gone there?’
While he was wondering a hired fly drove up, containing the lady in the gray mantle, and a number of parcels of different kinds and sizes. The driver of the diligence went forward to receive the lady and her parcels. She was evidently a frequent patron of his conveyance. He took pains to instal her carefully in the wretched interior.
‘I’ll go to Dol,’ decided Cyril. ‘I am bent on finding out who and what this woman is. It will be only the loss of a day, and I shall have time to think out my plan for finding Beatrix.’