Sylvia stayed on for nearly an hour in the delightful, peaceful garden,
and then, rather regretfully, she went up the lichen-covered steps which
led into the hall. How deliciously cool and quiet it was there.

She paid her bill; it seemed very moderate considering how good her lunch
had been, and then slowly made her way out of the Villa du Lac, down
across the stone-flagged courtyard to the gate, and so into the sanded
road.

Crossing over, she began walking by the edge of the lake; and once more
loneliness fell upon her. The happy-looking people who passed her
laughing and talking together, and the more silent couples who floated by
on the water in the quaint miniature sailing boats with which the surface
of the lake was now dotted, were none of them alone.

Suddenly the old parish church of Lacville chimed out the hour--it was
only one o'clock--amazingly early still!

Someone coming across the road lifted his hat. Could it be to her? Yes,
for it was the young man who had shared with her, for a time, the large
dining-room of the Villa du Lac.

Again Sylvia was struck by what she could only suppose were the
stranger's good manners, for instead of staring at her, as even the
good-humoured bourgeois with whom she had travelled from Paris that
morning had done, the Count--she remembered he was a Count--turned
sharply to the right and walked briskly along to the turning which
led to the Casino.