e did really still belong to her
. . .

"What time was it?" I managed to ask. And with the words my life itself
was being forced out through my lips. But Therese, not noticing anything
strange about me, said it was something like half-past seven in the
morning. The "poor sinner" was all in black as if she were going to
church (except for her expression, which was enough to shock any honest
person), and after ordering her with frightful menaces not to let anybody
know she was in the house she rushed upstairs and locked herself up in my
bedroom, while "that French creature" (whom she seemed to love more than
her own sister) went into my salon and hid herself behind the window
curtain.

I had recovered sufficiently to ask in a quiet natural voice whether Dona
Rita and Captain Blunt had seen each other. Apparently they had not seen
each other. The polite captain had looked so stern while packing up his
kit that Therese dared not speak to him at all. And he was in a hurry,
too. He had to see his dear mother off to Paris before his own
departure. Very stern. But he shook her hand with a very nice bow.

Therese elevated her right hand for me to see. It was broad and short
with blunt fingers, as usual. The pressure of Captain Blunt's handshake
had not altered its unlovely shape.

"What was the good of telling him that our Rita was here?" went on
Therese. "I would have been ashamed of her coming here and behaving as
if the house belonged to her! I had already said some prayers at his
intention at the half-past six mass, the brave gentleman. That maid of
my sister Rita was upstairs watching him drive away with her evil eyes,
but I made a sign of the cross after the fiacre, and then I went upstairs
and banged at your door, my dear kind young Monsieur, and shouted to Rita
that she had no right to lock herself in any of my _locataires_' rooms.
At last she opened it--and what do you think? All her hair was loose
over her shoulders. I suppose it all came down when she flung her hat on
your bed. I noticed when she arrived that her hair wasn't done properly.
She used your brushes to do it up again in front of your glass."

"Wait a moment," I said, and jumped up, upsetting my wine to run upstairs
as fast as I could. I lighted the gas, all the three jets in the middle
of the room, the jet by the bedside and two others flanking the
dressing-table. I had been struck by the wild hope of finding a trace of
Rita's passa