Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/115

Rh She passes her trembling hand across her brow, and looks at the speaker, as if she tried in vain to gather the meaning of his words.

"At ten o'clock, at the entrance to the Bois de Boulogne? I will be there," she murmurs faintly.

"Good! And now, madame, adieu! I fear I have fatigued you by this long interview. Stay! You should know the name of the man to whom you allow the honour of serving you."

He takes out his card-case, lays a card on the tiny table at her side, bows low to her, and leaves her—leaves her stricken to the dust. He looks back at her as he opens the door, and watches her for a moment, with a smile upon his face. His blows have had their full effect.

O Valerie, Valerie! loving so wildly, to be so degraded, humiliated, deceived! Little wonder that you cry to-night. There is no light in the sky—there is no glory in the world! Earth is weary, heaven is dark, and death alone is the friend of the broken heart!

on the card which the lounger leaves on the table of Mademoiselle de Cevennes, or Madame de Lancy, is the name of Raymond Marolles. The lounger, then, is Raymond Marolles, and it is he whom we must follow, on the morning after the stormy interview in the pavilion.

He occupies a charming apartment in the Champs Elysées; small, of course, as befitting a bachelor, but furnished in the best taste. On entering his rooms there is one thing you could scarcely fail to notice; and this is the surprising neatness, the almost mathematical precision, with which everything is arranged. Books, pictures, desks, pistols, small-swords, boxing-gloves, riding-whips, canes, and guns—every object is disposed in an order quite unusual in a bachelor's apartment. But this habit of neatness is one of the idiosyncrasies of Monsieur Marolles. It is to be seen in his exquisitely-appointed dress; in his carefully-trimmed moustache; it is to be heard even in the inflexions of his voice, which rise and fall with rather monotonous though melodious regularity, and which are never broken by anything so vulgar as anger or emotion.

At ten o'clock this morning he is still seated at breakfast. He has eaten nothing, but he is drinking his second cup of strong coffee, and it is easy to see that he is thinking very deeply.