As for him, he perfectly understood the dilemma in which she stood. Either she must accept the duty of returning to the death-bed of the old man, her mother's father, or she must confess her appointment with Warkworth.
Yet--suppose he had been mistaken? Well, the telegram from the Duchess covered his whole action. Lord Lackington was dying; and apart from all question of feeling, Julie Le Breton's friends must naturally desire that he should see her, acknowledge her before his two sons, and, with their consent, provide for her before his death.
But, ah, he had not been mistaken! He remembered her hurried refusal when he had asked her if he should telegraph for her to her Paris "friends"--how, in a sudden shame, he had turned away that he might not see the beloved false face as she spoke, might not seem to watch or suspect her.
He had just had time to send off a messenger, first to his friend at the Café Gaillard, and then to the Hôtel du Rhin, before escorting her to the sleeping-car.
Ah, how piteous had been that dull bewilderment with which she had turned to him!
"But--my ticket?"
"Here they are. Oh, never mind--we will settle in town. Try to sleep. You must be very tired."
And then it seemed to him that her lips trembled, like those of a miserable child; and surely, surely, she must hear that mad beating of his pulse!
Boulogne was gone in a flash. Here was the Somme, stretched in a pale silver flood beneath the moon--a land of dunes and stunted pines, of wide sea-marshes, over which came the roar of the Channel. Then again the sea was left behind, and the rich Picard country rolled away to right and left. Lights here and there, in cottage or villa--the lights, perhaps, of birth or death--companions of hope or despair.
Calais!