“Will you answer it?” she said, flushing red.

“No, Mlle. Delhasse, I will not,” said I.

“What is the meaning of this ‘absence’ of the Duchess of Saint-Maclou which that man talks about so meaningly?”

Then I said, speaking low and slow: 

“Who are the friends whom you are on your way to visit?”

“Who are you?” she cried.  “What do you know about it?  What concern is it of yours?”

There was no indolence or lack of animation in her manner now.  She questioned me with imperious indignation.

“I will answer not a single word,” said I.  “But—­you asked me last night what I had heard of you.”

“Well?” she said, and shut her lips tightly on the word.

I held my peace; and in a moment she went on passionately: 

“Who would have guessed that you would insult me?  Is it your habit to insult women?”

“Not mine only, it seems,” said I, meeting her glance boldly.

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Had you, then, an invitation from Mme. de Saint-Maclou?”

She drew back as if I had struck her.  And I felt as though I had struck her.  She looked at me for a moment with parted lips; then, without a word or a sign, she turned and walked slowly away in the direction of the hotel.

And I, glad to have something else to occupy my thoughts, started at a brisk pace along the foot-path that runs down the hill and meets the road which would lead me to the convent, for I had a thing or two to say to the duchess.  And yet it was not of the duchess only that I thought as I went.  There were also in my mind the indignant pride with which Marie Delhasse had questioned me, and the shrinking shame in her eyes at that counter-question of mine.  The Duke of Saint-Maclou’s invitation seemed to bring as much disquiet to one of his guests as it had to his wife herself.  But one thing struck me, and I found a sort of comfort in it:  she had thought, it seemed, that the duchess was to be at home.

“Pah!” I cried suddenly to myself.  “If she weren’t pretty, you’d say that made it worse!”

And I went on in a bad temper.

CHAPTER VII.

Heard through the Door.

Twenty minutes’ walking brought me to the wood which lay between the road and the convent.  I pressed on; soon the wood ceased and I found myself on the outskirts of a paddock of rough grass, where a couple of cows and half a dozen goats were pasturing; a row of stunted apple trees ran along one side of the paddock, and opposite me rose the white walls of the convent; while on my left was the burying-ground with its arched gateway, inscribed “Mors janua vitæ.”  I crossed the grass and rang a bell, that clanged again and again in echo.  Nobody came.  I pulled a second time and more violently.  After some further delay the door was cautiously opened a little way, and a young woman looked out.  She was a round-faced, red-cheeked, fresh creature, arrayed in a large close-fitting white cap, a big white collar over her shoulders, and a black gown.  When she saw me, she uttered an exclamation of alarm, and pushed the door to again.  Just in time I inserted my foot between door and doorpost.