Alas! she did not dream that it was to become her shroud.
Yes, as has doubtless been surmised, it was Violet whom Lisette Vermilet had found lying asleep upon the pile of sea-weed in the fisherman's shed.
After refusing to admit her sister to her room on the night previous to the day appointed for her wedding, she had continued her occupation of writing for some time. When she was through she read over what she had written, and then deliberately tore it into atoms.
"No, I will not tell them anything," she muttered, with a frown; "I will just go and leave no trace behind me. It may seem unkind to Lord Cameron, but some time I will explain it all."
She then arose and dressed herself in her traveling suit, tied a dark-blue vail about her face, and brought a thick shawl from her closet. She then began to lay out a change of clothing and her toilet articles, but suddenly stopped in the midst of her work.
"No, I will not burden myself with anything," she murmured, thoughtfully. "I am not strong, and I need all the strength I have to get myself away; besides, I can easily buy what I need in any town."
She hastily drew on her gloves, without observing that the rings, which she usually wore and which she prized very highly, were still lying upon her cushion where she had left them before taking her bath. She did not even think to take her watch, which she sadly missed and regretted afterward; her only thought was to get away as quickly as possible from all danger of violating her conscience and of wronging a noble and generous man.
She then put out her light and sat alone in the darkness, waiting for the house to become quiet so that she could steal forth unobserved.
Two hours passed, all in the house seemed to be at rest, and she noiselessly crept out of a window upon the piazza, made her way swiftly around the house to where a flight of stairs led to the ground, and then sped away in the darkness, with no definite idea whither she was going.
She took the highway leading away from Mentone, because she dreaded lest some one should meet and accost her in the town. She had a dim idea that if she could get to San Remo, which was about twelve miles east of Mentone, she could take a train going north without being discovered, and accordingly she bent her footsteps in this direction.