usual, and wearing a
large black bonnet and shawl.

"What is the matter?" asked Newman. "Is Madame la Comtesse at home, or
not?"

Mrs. Bread advanced, fixing her eyes upon him: he observed that she held
a sealed letter, very delicately, in her fingers. "The countess has left
a message for you, sir; she has left this," said Mrs. Bread, holding out
the letter, which Newman took.

"Left it? Is she out? Is she gone away?"

"She is going away, sir; she is leaving town," said Mrs. Bread.

"Leaving town!" exclaimed Newman. "What has happened?"

"It is not for me to say, sir," said Mrs. Bread, with her eyes on the
ground. "But I thought it would come."

"What would come, pray?" Newman demanded. He had broken the seal of the
letter, but he still questioned. "She is in the house? She is visible?"

"I don't think she expected you this morning," the old waiting-woman
replied. "She was to leave immediately."

"Where is she going?"

"To Fleurieres."

"To Fleurieres? But surely I can see her?"

Mrs. Bread hesitated a moment, and then clasping together her two hands,
"I will take you!" she said. And she led the way upstairs. At the top
of the staircase she paused and fixed her dry, sad eyes upon Newman. "Be
very easy with her," she said; "she is most unhappy!" Then she went on
to Madame de Cintre's apartment; Newman, perplexed and alarmed, followed
her rapidly. Mrs. Bread threw open the door, and Newman pushed back the
curtain at the farther side of its deep embrasure. In the middle of the
room stood Madame de Cintre; her face was pale and she was dressed
for traveling. Behind her, before the fire-place, stood Urbain de
Bellegarde, looking at his finger-nails; near the marquis sat his
mother, buried in an arm-chair, and with her eyes immediately fixing
themselves upon Newman. He felt, as soon as he entered the room, that he
was in the presence of something evil; he was startled and pained, as he
would have been by a threatening cry in the stillness of the night. He
walked straight to Madame de Cintre and seized her by the hand.

"What is the matter?" he asked, commandingly; "what is happening?"

Urbain de Bellegarde stared, then left his place and came and leaned
upon his mother's chair, behind. Newman's sudden irruption had evidently
discomposed both mother and son. Madame de Cintre stood silent, with
her eyes resting upon Newman's. She had often looked at him with all her
soul, as it seemed to him; but in this prese