Mora at once assented. Now that the worst was known, now that everything had been told, her heart cried out for solitude: she wanted to be alone with her despair.
On their way they encountered Miss Gaisford, to whom Mora made some kind of an excuse. An hour later they alighted at the Palatine. As they stood for a moment at the door, the colonel said: ‘I shall remain here at the hotel for the present, in case you should need me. No one can tell what may happen. Night or day I am at your service.’
She gazed into his eyes for a moment, pressed his hand tenderly, and was gone.
From that hour, Madame De Vigne had ceased to appear in the general sitting-room down-stairs. The bedrooms occupied by the sisters were separated by a small boudoir. In this latter room Madame De Vigne now passed her time, and here she and Clarice partook of their meals. Miss Penelope and Nanette alone had access to their room.
Of all the people in the hotel Colonel Woodruffe alone was aware that the polite and good-looking French gentleman who called himself M. De Miravel had any acquaintance with Madame De Vigne, or had as much as spoken a word to that lady. De Miravel, to all appearance, did not know a soul in the place. He was very smiling and affable to every one, but seemed to have no acquaintances. His sole occupation—if occupation it could be called—seemed to be to lounge about the grounds and smoke. Once, it is true, he went for an hour’s row on the lake, but that was all. When he and Colonel Woodruffe chanced to meet, they passed each other like utter strangers.
Another visitor who appeared not to care to make acquaintances was Mr Santelle. He took his breakfast in the public coffee-room, and dined at the table-d’hôte; his keen, watchful eyes saw everything and everybody, but he rarely addressed himself to any one. He was not so much en évidence as M. De Miravel; but with a guide-book under his arm and a field-glass slung over his shoulder, he took the steamer from place to place, and seemed bent upon seeing all that there was to be seen. Jules kept a furtive eye upon him at meal-times, but not the slightest sign of recognition passed between the two men.
When Clarice got back to the hotel on the evening of the picnic, she found a telegram from Archie awaiting her. ‘Governor not yet to hand,’ ran the message. ‘Probably fatigue of travelling has been too much for him. May have broken journey somewhere. Can only await his arrival. Hope he will turn up in the morning. Will telegraph again to-morrow.’
Clarice handed the telegram to Mr Etheridge. That gentleman read it slowly and carefully, and handed it back with a smile. ‘I think it very likely, as Mr Archie suggests, that Sir William has broken his journey,’ he observed. ‘But I have long thought that Sir William fancies himself more of an invalid than he really is, and that if he chose to exert himself a little more, it might perhaps be all the better for his health. But there is no accounting for the whims of these rich people. I sometimes think that a little poverty would be a good thing for some of them.’
There was more cynicism in this speech than in any that Clarice had hitherto heard from the old gentleman’s lips. But it was not in her province to make any reply to it. She had never even seen Sir William, whereas Mr Etheridge had known him for years.
When not with her sister—and Mora seemed to prefer to be as much alone as possible—Clarice spent most of her time with the old man. She could talk to him about Archie, whom he seemed to have known from childhood, and could listen with unfailing interest to all that he had to tell about the eccentric baronet; while Mr Etheridge seemed quite as fond of her society as she was of his. No message, either by telegram or letter, had yet arrived for him, but he never failed to ransack the letter-rack three or four times a day. ‘We can only wait,’ he said once or twice to Clarice, as he turned from the rack with that faint, patient smile which she was beginning to know so well. ‘Sir William is a man who can never bear to be hurried in anything.’