"No, no; it is impossible!" reiterated Helen, with much apparent distress.
Monsieur D'Arblet whispered something more.
"Very well, if you insist upon it!" she said, faintly, and then got into her carriage and was driven away.
Before, however, she had left Walpole Lodge five minutes, she called out to the servants to stop the carriage. The footman descended from the box and came round to the window.
They had drawn up by the side of a long wall quite beyond the crowd of carriages that was waiting at Lady Kynaston's house.
"I want to wait here a few minutes, for—for a gentleman I am going to drive back to town," she said to the servant, confusedly. She was ashamed to give such an order to him.
She was frightened too, and trembled with nervousness lest any one should see her waiting here.
It was a cold, damp night, and Helen shivered, and drew her fur cloak closer about her in the darkness. Presently there came footsteps along the pathway, and a man came through the fog up to the door. It was opened for him in silence, and he got in, and the carriage drove off again.
Monsieur Le Vicomte D'Arblet had a mean, cunning-looking countenance; strictly speaking, indeed, he was rather handsome, his features being decidedly well-shaped, but the evil and vindictive expression of his face made it an unpleasant one to look upon. As he took his seat in the brougham by Helen's side she shrank instinctively away from him.
"So, ma mie!" he said, peering down into her face with odious familiarity, "here I find you again after all this time, beautiful as ever! It is charming to be with you again, once more."