At the suggestion of the wizened old housekeeper, I ate the meal alone—or, rather, I put some dry, chip-like substances into my mouth, which chose to collect themselves in a lump some little way below my throat. The old lady seemed as ignorant as I of the reason of mademoiselle’s delay, though once and again, from the shrewd scrutiny which I caught her bestowing upon my countenance, I suspected that she knew more than she would confess. The afternoon went by in that misery of waiting that turns one’s blood to gall. I would go out among the roses, but cursing them for their false, disastrous speech, I found them not contenting company. Then I would go back into the library and spend the sluggish minutes in jumping up, sitting down, trying this book, rejecting that, while every sense was on the rack of intensity to catch some hint of her presence in the house. But all in vain. The stillness seemed unnatural. There was a menace in the clear pour of the afternoon sun. When at last, toward sundown, the humpbacked old gardener went by the window with a watering-pot, I was startled to see that the affairs of life were going on as usual. There was somehow a grain of comfort, of reassurance, in the sight of the old humpback. I left the library and went to find the housekeeper, determined to put her through such an inquisition as should in some way relieve my suspense.
I found her in the supper-room, putting flowers on a table that was set for—only one.
“Supper is served, monsieur,” she said, as I came in.
“For me alone?” I gasped, feeling that the world had come to an end.
“For monsieur,” she answered.
“Tell me”—and the tone made her look at me quickly with a deference not before observable in her manner—“tell me at once where Mademoiselle le Fevre is gone.”
“Certainly, monsieur, certainly. There is no desire to deceive monsieur. Mademoiselle and her maid have removed to the inn at Cheticamp, where mademoiselle intends to reside till she can join monsieur her brother at Louisbourg.”
I heard her through, then rushed from the room, snatched up my hat, and sped down to the inn of Cheticamp. I fear that the civil salutations of the villagers whom I passed went outrageously unregarded.
My demand was urgent, so within a very few minutes of my coming I was ushered into mademoiselle’s parlour, and with a thrill of hope at the omen I noted that it was the same room which I had occupied on the night of my arrival at Cheticamp, the same dear room through whose hop-garlanded window I had made such bold and merry counterfeit with mademoiselle in her disguise. But not nourishing to hope was mademoiselle’s greeting. I had not dreamed so small a dame could ever look so tall. Her slim figure was in the gown of creamy linen which she had worn when I had met her in the rose-garden. Her small, strange, child-like face was very white, her lips set coldly and less scarlet than their wont, and her eyes—they were fearfully bright and large, with a gaze which I could not fathom.
“To what do I owe this honour, monsieur?” she asked. “It is much——”