Once or twice her breast slowly heaved and fell beneath her neat, black gown. Then at last she rose and, crossing to the cupboard with firm resolve, took out a small, ten-centime bottle of ink and an envelope.
Seating herself at the table, she took the pen in her trembling fingers, and with tears falling upon the paper, traced uneven words in French, as follows:
“In spite of my love for you, Ralph, I cannot suffer longer. Certain hidden things in your life frighten me. Farewell. Forget me.—Jean.”
Slowly she folded it, took off her wedding-ring, and placed it in the envelope, together with the letter. Afterwards she addressed it to her husband, and left it upon the table. Then slowly she rose with a hard, fixed look, and passed into the adjoining room, which was a bedroom.
She took a sad farewell of the few little treasures which she had brought from her own room in Oxford Street—knick-knacks, photographs, and the like—and, putting on her hat, passed back across the living-room, and then crept down the stairs and out—undiscovered and unheard by the ever-watchful old woman in the black, knitted shawl.
Without a glance back, she gained the broad, well-lit thoroughfare, and, turning to the left, went blindly and broken-hearted along in the direction of the Bois, out into the world, sad, despairing, and alone, heedless of where her steps led her, out into the unknown.
Meanwhile “The American” and “The Eel” were busy with their adventure.
To the left of the broad, main avenue, which, running through Neuilly-on-Seine, crosses the river to Courbevoie, lived the wealthy Baron de Rycker.
The house stood alone in a secluded spot, surrounded by its own spacious grounds, and hidden from the road by a high wall. In this was a big gate of ornamental iron, the top of which was gilded—a gate which the concierge, who lived in the lodge beside it, always kept locked.