"But has she gone home again?"
"Well—she may be home by now; I really don't know"—Madeleine was opening the door of the little drawing-room.
It was an ugly, common-looking room; the walls were hung with Turkey red, and ornamented with cheap coloured prints. There were cane and basket chairs which Madame Baudoin had striven to make comfortable with the help of cushions and rugs.
Jacques de Wissant told himself that it was odd that Claire should like to spend so much of her time here, in the Châlet des Dunes, instead of asking her sister to join her each morning or afternoon in her own beautiful house on the cliff.
"Forgive me," he said stiffly, "but I can't stay a moment. I really came for Claire. You say I shall find her at home?"
He held his top hat and his yellow gloves in his hand, and his sister-in-law thought she had never seen Jacques look so plain and unattractive, and—and tiresome as he looked to-day.
Madame Baudoin had a special reason for wishing him away; but she knew the slow, sure workings of his mind. If Jacques found that his wife had not gone back to the Pavillon de Wissant, and that there was no news of her there, he would almost certainly come back to the Châlet des Dunes for further information.
"No," she said reluctantly, "Claire has not gone back to the Pavillon. I believe that she has gone into the town. She had something important that she wished to do there."
She looked so troubled, so—so uncomfortable that Jacques de Wissant leapt to the sudden conclusion that the tidings he had been at such pains to bring had already been brought to the Châlet des Dunes.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "then I am too late! Ill news travels fast."