She smoked only one cigarette with Duchemin in the drawing-room after
dinner, then excused herself to wait on Madame de Sévénié and finish
her packing. It was time, too, for Duchemin to remember he was still an
invalid and subject to a régime prescribed by his surgeon: he must go
early to his bed.

"I am sorry, mon ami," the woman said, hesitating after she had left
her chair before the fire; whose play of broken light was, perhaps,
responsible for some of the softness of her eyes as she faced Duchemin
and gave him her hand--"sorry our last evening together must be so
brief. I am in the mood to sit and talk with you for hours to-night..."

"If you could only manage even one, madame!" She shook her head gently,
with a wistful smile. "There will never be another night..."

"I know, I know; and the knowledge makes me very sad. I have enjoyed
knowing you, monsieur, even under such distressing circumstances..."

"My wound? You tempt me to seek another!"

"Don't be absurd." He was still holding her hand, and she made no move
to free it, but seeming forgetful of it altogether, lingered on. "I
shall miss you, monsieur. The château will seem lonely when I return, I
shall feel its loneliness more than I have ever felt it."

"And the world, madame," said Duchemin--"the world into which I must
go--it, too, will seem a lonely place,--a desert, haunted..."

"You will soon forget ... Château de Montalais."