‘I want to know at what hour the next train from Scotland is due at the station.’
Jules bowed and retired.
At this time Mora De Vigne had touched her thirtieth year. She was taller than the ordinary run of women, with a quiet, Juno-like stateliness in her every gesture and movement. She had dark-brown hair, and large, dark, luminous eyes, that to many people seemed like eyes they had seen somewhere long ago in a picture. Her complexion was still as clear and delicate as that of Clarice her sister, who was a dozen years younger; but there were lines of care about her eyes, and a touch of melancholy in the curve of her lips. In her expression there was something which told you instinctively that in years gone by she had confronted trouble and sorrow of no ordinary kind, and that if peace and quiet days were her portion now, there was that in the past which could never be forgotten.
Jules returned. ‘The next train from Scotland is due at half-past seven, madame.’
‘Thank you. That is all.’ She looked at her watch, and then she said to herself with a little thrill: ‘Two hours, and he will be here!’
Jules was still lingering, and Madame De Vigne regarded him with a little surprise.
‘Pardon, but madame does not remember me?’ said Jules, addressing her in French.
‘No; I have no recollection of having ever seen you before I came to this place,’ she answered, after regarding him attentively for a moment or two.
‘Yet I remembered madame the moment I saw her again.’
She could not repress a start. ‘Again! Where and when have you seen me before?’