"I made inquiries about him again a short time ago. He is not unhappy. He knows nothing and nobody, and takes no notice. The brain was affected, and it is only a question of time—a few months, a few years. He does not suffer."
"For a long time I thought he and I had died together."
"You both all but died, Annette."
"Where is he now?"
"In his aunt's house in Paris. She came down before I left."
"I hope she seemed a kind woman."
"She seemed a silly one. She brought her own doctor and Mr. Le Geyt's valet with her. She evidently distrusted the Fontainebleau doctor and me. She paid him up and dismissed him at once, and she as good as dismissed me."
"Perhaps," said Annette, "she thought you and the doctor were in collusion with me. I suppose some lurid story, with me in the middle of it, reached her at once."
"No doubt. The valet had evidently told her that his master had not gone down to Fontainebleau alone. She arrived prepared for battle."
"And where was I all the time?"