At last came the moment of parting.

“I’ll go and see you off at the station,” she said, and Chester, rather surprised, raised one or two objections.  “I’m determined to come,” she cried angrily.  “What a pity it is, Bill, that you always try and manage other people’s business for them!”

And she did go to the station—­only to be sorry for it afterwards.

Paul de Virieu, holding her hand tightly clasped in his for the last time, had become frightfully pale, and as she made her way back to the Casino, where the Wachners were actually waiting for her, Sylvia was haunted by his reproachful, despairing eyes.

CHAPTER XXIV

It was nearly nine o’clock, and for the moment the Casino was very empty, for the afternoon players had left, and the evening serie, as M. Polperro contemptuously called them—­the casual crowd of night visitors to Lacville—­had not yet arrived from Paris.

“And now,” said Madame Wachner, suddenly, “is it not time for us to go and ’ave our little supper?”

The “citizeness of the world” had been watching her husband and Sylvia playing at Baccarat; both of them had won, and Sylvia had welcomed, eagerly, the excitement of the tables.

Count Paul’s muttered farewell echoed in her ears, and the ornately decorated gambling room seemed full of his presence.

She made a great effort to put any intimate thought of him away.  The next day, so she told herself, she would go back to England, to Market Dalling.  There she must forget that such a place as Lacville existed; there she must banish Paul de Virieu from her heart and memory.  Yes, there was nothing now to keep her here, in this curious place, where she had eaten, in more than one sense, of the bitter fruit of the tree of knowledge.

With a deep, involuntary sigh, she rose from the table.

She looked at the green cloth, at the people standing round it, with an odd feeling that neither the table nor the people round her were quite real.  Her heart and thoughts were far away, with the two men both of whom loved her in their very different ways.

Then she turned with an unmirthful smile to her companions.  It would not be fair to let her private griefs sadden the kindly Wachners.  It was really good of them to have asked her to come back to supper at the Chalet des Muguets.  She would have found it terribly lonely this evening at the Villa du Lac....

“I am quite ready,” she said, addressing herself more particularly to Madame Wachner; and the three walked out of the Club rooms.

“Shall we take a carriage?” Sylvia asked diffidently; she knew her stout friend disliked walking.

“No, no,” said Monsieur Wachner shortly.  “There is no need to take a carriage to-night; it is so fine, and, besides, it is not very far.”

He so seldom interfered or negatived any suggestion that Sylvia felt a little surprised, the more so that it was really a long walk from the Casino to the lonely Chalet des Muguets.  But as Madame Wachner had nodded assent to her husband’s words, their English guest said no more.