Old Jacques shook his head.
"No, Mam'selle. Monsieur has paid me like a king, shook hands with Margot and me, and gone forever."
There was a dead pause. Rose clutched her bridle-rein, and felt the earth spinning under her, her face growing-white and cold.
"Did he leave no message—no message for me?"
She could barely utter the words, the shock, the consternation were so great. Something like a laugh shone in old Jacques' eyes.
"No, Mademoiselle, he never spoke of you. He only paid us, and said good-bye, and went away."
Rose turned Regina slowly round in a stunned sort of way, and with the reins loose on her neck, let her take her road homeward. A dull sense of despair was all she was conscious of. She could not think, she could not reason, her whole mind was lost in blank consternation. He was gone. She could not get beyond that—he was gone.
The boy who came to lead away her horse stared at her changed face; the servant who opened the door opened his eyes, also, at sight of her. She never heeded them; a feeling that she wanted to be alone was all she could realize, and she walked straight to a little alcove opening from the lower end of the long entrance-hall. An archway and a curtain of amber silk separated it from the drawing-room, of which it was a sort of recess. A sofa, piled high with downy pillows, stood invitingly under a window. Among these pillows poor Rose threw herself, to do battle with her despair.
While she lay there in tearless rage, she heard the drawing-room door open, and some one come in.
"Who shall I say, sir?" insinuated the servant.