Jacqueline said not a word.

Wanda took her arm.  “You may be sure,” she said, “that I am thinking only of your good.  Come!  Would you like to go into the Casino and look at the pictures?  No, you are tired?  You can see them some evening.  The ballroom holds a thousand persons.  Yes, if you prefer, we will go home.  You can take a nap till dinner-time.  We shall dine at eight o’clock.”

Conversation languished till they reached the Villa Rosa.  Notwithstanding Jacqueline’s efforts to appear natural, her own voice rang in her ears in tones quite new to her, a laugh that she uttered without any occasion, and which came near resulting in hysterics.  Yet she had power enough over her nerves to notice the surroundings as she entered the house.  At the door of the room in which she was to sleep, and which was on the first story, Madame Strahlberg kissed her with one of those equivocal smiles which so long had imposed on her simplicity.

“Till eight o’clock, then.”

“Till eight o’clock,” repeated Jacqueline, passively.

But when eight o’clock came she sent word that she had a severe headache, and would try to sleep it off.

Suppose, she thought, M. de Cymier should have been asked to dinner; suppose she should be placed next to him at table?  Anything in that house seemed possible now.

They brought her a cup of tea.  Up to a late hour she heard a confused noise of music and laughter.  She did not try to sleep.  All her faculties were on the alert, like those of a prisoner who is thinking of escape.  She knew what time the night trains left the station, and, abandoning her trunk and everything else that she had with her, she furtively—­but ready, if need were, to fight for her liberty with the strength of desperation—­slipped down the broad stairs over their thick carpet and pushed open a little glass door.  Thank heaven! people came in and went out of that house as if it had been a mill.  No one discovered her flight till the next morning, when she was far on her way to Paris in an express train.  Modeste, quite unprepared for her young mistress’s arrival, was amazed to see her drop down upon her, feverish and excited, like some poor hunted animal, with strength exhausted.  Jacqueline flung herself into her nurse’s arms as she used to do when, as a little girl, she was in what she fancied some great trouble, and she cried:  “Oh, take me in—­pray take me in!  Keep me safe!  Hide me!” And then she told Modeste everything, speaking rapidly and disconnectedly, thankful to have some one to whom she could open her heart.  In default of Modeste she would have spoken to stone walls.

“And what will you do now, my poor darling?” asked the old nurse, as soon as she understood that her young lady had come back to her, “with weary foot and broken wing,” from what she had assured her on her departure would be a brilliant excursion.

“Oh!  I don’t know,” answered Jacqueline, in utter discouragement; “I am too worn out to think or to do anything.  Let me rest; that is all.”