Molly frowned.

“What is his name?”

“It sounded like Laccaroni, ma’am.”

“Show him up.”

“Well, I’m off,” said the young visitor, and, still entirely absorbed in her own affairs, she took Molly’s limp hand and left the room.

A spare man with a pale face and rather good eyes was announced as “Dr. Laccaroni.”  “Larrone,” he corrected gently.  He carried a small old tin despatch box, and looked extremely dusty.

“I am the bearer of sad tidings,” he said in English, with a fair accent, in a dry staccato voice.  “It was better not to telegraph, as I was to come at once.”

“You attended my mother?”

“Yes, until two nights ago.  That was the end.”

“Did she suffer?”

“For a few hours, yes; and there was also some brain excitement—­delirium.  In an interval that appeared to be lucid (but I was not quite sure) she told me to come to you, mademoiselle, quite as soon as she was dead, and she gave me money and this little box to bring to you.  She said more than once, ‘It shall be her own affair.’  The key is in this sealed envelope.  Afterwards twice she spoke to me:  ’Don’t forget,’ and then the rest was raving.  But the last two hours were peace.”

“And where is my mother to be buried?”

“Madame will be cremated, and her ashes placed in an urn in the garden, mademoiselle, in a fine mausoleum, with just her name, ‘Justine,’ and the dates—­no more.  Madame told me that these were her wishes.”

“Do you know what is in this box?”

“Not at all, and I incline to think there may be nothing:  the mind was quite confused.  And yet I could only calm her by promising to come at once, and so I came, and if mademoiselle will permit I should like to retire to my hotel.”

“Can I be of any use to you?”

“Not at all:  the money for the journey was more than enough.”

Molly was left alone, and she gave orders that no one, without exception, was to be admitted.  Then she walked up and down the room in a condition of semi-conscious pain.

At first it seemed as if Dr. Larrone’s intelligence had not reached her brain at all.  The only clear thing in her mind at that moment was the thought that Edmund was going away at once with Lady Rose Bright.  The disappointment was in proportion to the wild hopes of the last week, only Molly had not quite owned to herself how intensely she had looked forward to his next coming.  It was true he might still come and see her before he started, but if he came it could not be what she had meant it to be.  If he had meant what Molly dreamed of, could he have gone off suddenly on this yachting expedition?  She knew the yachting was not thought of when she had seen him, for he told her then that he meant to stay in London for some weeks.  But as her thoughts grew clearer, what was most horrible to Molly was a gradual dawning of common daylight into the romance she had