any one but you!"

CHAPTER XXII. A MEETING AT THE STATION

Le Menil had written: "I leave tomorrow evening at seven o'clock. Meet
me at the station."

She had gone to meet him. She saw him in long coat and cape, precise and
calm, in front of the hotel stages. He said only:

"Ah, you have come."

"But, my friend, you called me."

He did not confess that he had written in the absurd hope that she would
love him again and that the rest would be forgotten, or that she would
say to him: "It was only a trial of your love."

If she had said so he would have believed her, however.

Astonished because she did not speak, he said, dryly:

"What have you to say to me? It is not for me to speak, but for you. I
have no explanations to give you. I have not to justify a betrayal."

"My friend, do not be cruel, do not be ungrateful. This is what I had
to say to you. And I must repeat that I leave you with the sadness of a
real friend."

"Is that all? Go and say this to the other man. It will interest him
more than it interests me."

"You called me, and I came; do not make me regret it."

"I am sorry to have disturbed you. You could doubtless find a better
employment for your time. I will not detain you. Rejoin him, since you
are longing to do so."

At the thought that his unhappy words expressed a moment of eternal
human pain, and that tragedy had illustrated many similar griefs, she
felt all the sadness and irony of the situation, which a curl of her
lips betrayed. He thought she was laughing.

"Do not laugh; listen to me. The other day, at the hotel, I wanted to
kill you. I came so near doing it that now I know what I escaped. I will
not do it. You may rest secure. What would be the use? As I wish to keep
up appearances, I shall call on you in Paris. It will grieve me to learn
that you can not receive me. I shall see your husband, I shall see your
father also. It will be to say good-by to them, as I intend to go on a
long voyage. Farewell, Madame!"

At the moment when he turned his back to her, Therese saw Miss Bell and
Prince Albertinelli coming out of the freight-station toward her.
The Prince was very handsome. Vivian was walking by his side with the
lightness of chaste joy.

"Oh, darling, what a pleasant surprise to find you here! The Prince, and
I have seen, at the customhouse, the new bell, which has just come."

"Ah, the bell has come?"

"It is here, darling, the Ghiberti bell. I saw it in its wood