At The Villa Rose

The quiet and simple confession touched the magistrate who

listened to it with profound pity. He shaded his eyes with his

hand. The girl's sense of her unworthiness, the love she had given

so unstintingly to Harry Wethermill, the deep pride she had felt

in the delusion that he loved her too, had in it an irony too

bitter. But he was aroused to anger against the man.

"Go on, mademoiselle," he said. But in spite of himself his voice

trembled.

"So I arranged with him that we should meet on Wednesday, as Mr.

Ricardo heard."

"You told him that you would 'want him' on Wednesday," said the

Judge quoting Mr. Ricardo's words.

"Yes," replied Celia. "I meant that the last word of all these

deceptions would have been spoken. I should be free to hear what

he had to say to me. You see, monsieur, I was so sure that I knew

what it was he had to say to me--"and her voice broke upon the

words. She recovered herself with an effort. "Then I went home

with Mme. Dauvray."

On the morning of Tuesday, however, there came a letter from Adele

Tace, of which no trace was afterwards discovered. The letter

invited Mme. Dauvray and Celia to come out to Annecy and dine with

her at an hotel there. They could then return together to Aix. The

proposal fitted well with Mme. Dauvray's inclinations. She was in

a feverish mood of excitement.

"Yes, it will be better that we dine quietly together in a place

where there is no noise and no crowd, and where no one knows us,"

she said; and she looked up the time-table. "There is a train back

which reaches Aix at nine o'clock," she said, "so we need not

spoil Servettaz' holiday."

"His parents will be expecting him," Helene Vauquier added.

Accordingly Servettaz left for Chambery by the 1.50 train from

Aix; and later on in the afternoon Mme. Dauvray and Celia went by

train to Annecy. In the one woman's mind was the queer longing

that "she" should appear and speak to-night; in the girl's there

was a wish passionate as a cry. "This shall be the last time," she

said to herself again and again--"the very last."

Meanwhile, Helene Vauquier, it must be held, burnt carefully Adele

Taces letter. She was left in the Villa Rose with the charwoman to

keep her company. The charwoman bore testimony that Helene

Vauquier certainly did burn a letter in the kitchen-stove, and

that after she had burned it she sat for a long time rocking

herself in a chair, with a smile of great pleasure upon her face,

and now and then moistening her lips with her tongue. But Helene

Vauquier kept her mouth sealed.