By eleven o'clock the good lady had left Romaine, apparently calm and at peace with herself, in the hands of her maid, and had retired for the night.
The gown of India silk had been exchanged for a garment of soft white wool, the peculiar flowing pattern of which suggested the graceful robes of Watteau and Greuze, and in it the young mistress of Belvoir reclined at ease upon her couch. So lost was she in revery, that she took no heed of the maid, who, her preparations for the night completed, glided to the back of the couch and stood waiting. The Dresden clock's faint tick became audible, and presently the chime rang out. The oppressive silence broken, the maid spoke:
"Will Miss Romaine have her hair brushed now?"
Romaine turned with a start, casting one exquisitely moulded arm up to the back of the couch, so that she faced the speaker.
"I must have been asleep or in a trance!" she exclaimed in a dazed way. "No, no, Eunice; I will braid my hair to-night. Go to bed. It is late. See, it is half-past eleven."
"But, miss, I—"
"Yes, I know you would work over me until you dropped from sheer fatigue," the young lady went on, with a smile; "but I shall not permit it—not to-night. I prefer to be left alone. Good-night."
Reluctantly the maid vanished, closing the door behind her.
The instant she disappeared, Romaine rose and stood in the faint glow of the single candle, her white robe lying in ample folds about her.
"At last I am alone!" She listened intently for some sound in the silent house. "Alone—with my thoughts of him! How he loves me; but," with a fluttering sigh, "how he loved that other one—that Paula! Am I she? He says I am; and who should know as well as he? Oh, it is all so strange, so mysterious, that—that I cannot tell. His great love assures me that I must have lived before. When I am with him, I am as sure as he; but, when he is not with me, I seem to doubt, to be groping somewhere, as it were blindfold, among familiar scenes. O Loyd, sustain me, be my guide, or I shall fall by the wayside, fainting, helpless!"