'Has M. de Meyrau been here?' she asked of Josephine.
'Yes, ma'am; and on learning that Madame was out, he left a note, chez monsieur.'
Hortense found a sealed letter on the table in her husband's old study. It ran as follows:
'I was desolated at finding you out. I had a word to tell you. I have accepted an invitation to sup and pass the night at C——, thinking it would look well. For the same reason I have resolved to take the bull by the horns, and go aboard the steamer on my return, to welcome M. Bernier home—the privilege of an old friend. I am told the Armorique will anchor off the bar by daybreak. What do you think? But it's too late to let me know. Applaud my savoir faire—you will, at all events, in the end. You will see how it will smoothe matters.'
'Baffled! baffled!' hissed Madame, when she had read the note; 'God deliver me from my friends!' She paced up and down the room several times, and at last began to mutter to herself, as people often do in moments of strong emotion: 'Bah! but he'll never get up by daybreak. He'll oversleep himself, especially after to-night's supper. The other will be before him..... Oh, my poor head, you've suffered too much to fail in the end!'
Josephine reappeared to offer to remove her mistress's things. The latter, in her desire to reassure herself, asked the first question that occurred to her.
'Was M. le Vicomte alone?'
'No, madame; another gentleman was with him—M. de Saulges, I think. They came in a hack, with two portmanteaus.'
Though I have judged best, hitherto, often from an exaggerated fear of trenching on the ground of fiction, to tell you what this poor lady did and said, rather than what she thought, I may disclose what passed in her mind now:
'Is he a coward? is he going to leave me? or is he simply going to pass these last hours in play and drink? He might have stayed with me. Ah! my friend, you do little for me, who do so much for you; who commit murder, and—Heaven help me!—suicide for you!.... But I suppose he knows best. At all events, he will make a night of it.'