With a softly breathed farewell in response, Violet turned and walked quickly away, while Lisette went back into the shed, put out her candle and threw the end away, after which she turned in the opposite direction and began to climb the steep hills or cliffs, along which the highway led toward Mentone.
Violet went on her way in the darkness, her heart beating rapidly with fear lest she should encounter some rude fisherman or peasant who would stop and question her.
She was foot-sore and weary long before she came in sight of the village, for a mile was a long distance to her unaccustomed muscles, while Lisette's heavy shoes hurt her tender feet sorely.
But, guided by the lights along the railroad track, she found her way to the crossing the girl had told, her about, and, sinking down upon a pile of sleepers by the road-bed, she uttered a sigh of relief that she had reached the end of her long walk.
She did not have a great while to wait, for presently the cars came thundering along, and soon she was on the train for Nice, whence she took an express for Paris. Now she felt safe from pursuit, as she was being whirled northward at the rate of forty miles an hour.
VIOLET RETURNS TO AMERICA.
Meanwhile the kind-hearted peasant girl, Lisette, feeling as if she had suddenly been changed into another being by some good fairy—and she certainly looked like a different person, clad as she was like a lady—was walking at a swinging pace toward Mentone, and—her doom.
She intended to walk until the day began to dawn, and then beg a ride to Monaco in one of the market-carts which made daily trips from the country to that city.
It was still very dark, and the road, which lay up a steep hill, was very narrow, and ran dangerously near the cliffs which overhung the sea.