Left to herself, she sat down, miserably, and wrote a letter which was to destroy his love for her. But it was still unfinished when he arrived. She hid the paper, and trembled.
After a time she walked quickly from the room, saying she should soon return.
And she was gone to return no more.
He waited as the night came on. Then, growing unaccountably frightened, called for lights. No one answered. Running from the room to the grounds, he shrieked out her name. No answer. He ran over the house; it was deserted. She and her servants had left the place, and it was silent, and lifeless.
And still, hoping against hope, he wandered about the house in search of his lost love.
CHAPTER III.
Back into the dreadful life she had left. Away from the placid lake and whispering trees. Again feasting, and heartlessness, and golden misery. Armand soon learnt that she had abandoned him for another. He cursed her very name; but she was wrong in thinking he would hate her; wrong in thinking he would hasten to the home where he was born. He came to Paris, and waited angrily for revenge.
Marguerite’s new protector was a man immensely fond of pleasure, and in spite of her protestations, would drag her from theatre to ball room, and from house to house.
She suffered horribly. Her old complaint burst out anew, her cough came back again, and she was once more a poor ailing creature, whose great beauty grew each day less and less.