Mademoiselle came from this interview alone, and I was sure that
she had been weeping. Madame and the dark porter stayed outside
some time longer; then she, too, came in, and disappeared.
Clon did not return with her, and when I went into the garden
five minutes later, Louis also had vanished. Save for two women
who sat sewing at an upper window, the house seemed to be
deserted. Not a sound broke the afternoon stillness of room or
garden, and yet I felt that more was happening in this silence
than appeared on the surface. I begin to grow curious--
suspicious, and presently slipped out myself by way of the
stables, and skirting the wood at the back of the house, gained
with a little trouble the bridge which crossed the stream and led
to the village.
Turning round at this point I could see the house, and I moved a
little aside into the underwood, and stood gazing at the windows,
trying to unriddle the matter. It was not likely that M. de
Cocheforet would repeat his visit so soon; and, besides, the
women's emotions had been those of pure dismay and grief, unmixed
with any of the satisfaction to which such a meeting, though
snatched by stealth, must give rise.
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