“Oh, what is this? Where am I?”
“With a friend,” murmured the French maid, significantly, and she assisted her mistress to rise and led her into the dressing-room adjoining the ruined boudoir.
“Lie down here on the sofa and rest, my dear,” she said, in quite a different tone from that she had used in her former interview, and the languid girl obeyed, for she was trembling so that she could not stand or even hold up her golden head.
Suzanne brought her a glass of wine, but she shook her head, exclaiming:
“I will touch neither food nor drink in this house.”
“Then rest a while in quiet, and I will return to you,” the woman replied kindly, and left the room.
She went down stairs and ascertained that Harold Castello had left the house with his valet, to seek a physician and have his burns dressed. The only other occupant of the house, a man-cook, was nodding sleepily over his kitchen table with a newspaper.
The woman returned to Violet, whom she found sitting up, looking with displeasure at the beautiful white silk gown she wore.
She said, coldly:
“Suzanne, I have just observed that you took the liberty of changing my dress while I was in a swoon.”