Lady Lyndwood sank on the leather settee.
"There are no candles there, Rose, shall I ring?" Her anxious eyes appealed to him.
"No," he answered, "this will suffice."
He took one of the candles from the table and led the way from the room; Marius followed, very grave.
The Countess heard them enter the next room and the door close after them.
She glanced about her, at the scarf Marius had brought her, lying where she had let it slip, upon the hearth, at his mirror on the table, and beside it Rose's grey gloves and riding stock.
The chamber grew unnaturally quiet; she was afraid to move; cruel memories that came to her always in the silences made her blood go cold; a look of age and suffering settled in her delicate face, she fixed her eyes on the portrait of her husband over the mantelshelf and clasped her hands tightly in her lap.