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This was reassuring, and Carey accepted it without comment or inquiry. He knew that there was a misunderstanding somewhere, but he was still too exhausted to trouble himself about so slight a matter. He thanked his kindly informant, and again he slept.

Two days later his interest in life revived. He began to ask questions, and received from the doctor a full account of what had occurred.

He had been washed ashore, he was told–he and madame his wife–lashed fast together. The ship had been wrecked within half a mile of the land. But the seas had been terrific. There had not been many survivors.

Carey digested the news in silence. He had had no friends on board, having embarked only at Gibraltar.

At length he looked up with a faint smile at his faithful attendant. “And where is–madame?” he asked.

The little doctor hesitated, and spread out his hands deprecatingly.

“Oh, monsieur, I regret–I much regret–to have to inform you that she is already departed for Paris. Her solicitude for you was great, was pathetic. The first words she speak were: ‘My husband, do not let him know!’ as though she feared that you would be distressed for her. And then she recover quick, quick, and say that she must go–that monsieur when he know, will understand. And so she depart early in the morning of yesterday while monsieur is still asleep.”

He was watching Carey with obvious anxiety as he ended, but the Englishman’s face expressed nothing but a somewhat elaborate indifference.

“I see,” he said, and relapsed into silence.

He made no further reference to the matter, and the doctor discreetly abstained from asking questions. He presently showed him an English paper which contained the information that Mr. and Mrs. Carey were among the rescued.

“That,” he remarked, “will alleviate the anxiety of your friends.”

To which Carey responded, with a curt laugh: “No one knew that we were on board.”

He left for Paris on the following day, allowing the doctor to infer that he was on his way to join his wife.

I

It was growing dark in the empty class-room, but there was nothing left to do, and the French mistress, sitting alone at her high desk, made no move to turn on the light. All the lesson books were packed away out of sight. There was not so much as a stray pencil trespassing upon that desert of orderliness. Only the waste-paper basket, standing behind Mademoiselle Treves’s chair, gave evidence of the tempest of energy that had preceded this empty calm in the midst of which she sat alone. It was crammed to overflowing with torn exercise books, and all manner of schoolgirls’ rubbish, and now and then it creaked eerily in the desolate silence as though at the touch of an invisible hand.

It was very cold in the great room, for the fire had gone out long ago. There was no one left to enjoy it except mademoiselle, who apparently did not count. For most of the pupils had departed in the morning, and those who were left were collected in the great hall speeding one after another upon their homeward way. All day the wheels of cabs had crunched the gravel below the class-room window, but they were not so audible now, for the ground was thickly covered with snow, which had been drearily falling throughout the afternoon.

It lay piled upon the window-sill, casting a ghostly light into the darkening room, vaguely outlining the slender figure that sat so still before the high desk.

Another cab-load of laughing girls was just passing out at the gate. There could not be many left. The darkness increased, and mademoiselle drew a quick breath and shivered. She wished the departures were all over.

There came a light step in the passage, and a daring whistle, which broke off short as a hand impetuously opened the class-room door.

“Why, mademoiselle!” cried a fresh young voice. “Why, cherie!” Warm arms encircled the lonely figure, and eager lips pressed the cold face. “Oh, cherie, don’t grizzle!” besought the newcomer. “Why, I’ve never known you do such a thing before. Have you been here all this time? I’ve been looking for you all over the place. I couldn’t leave without one more good-bye. And see here, cherie, you must–you must–come to my birthday-party on New Year’s Eve. If you won’t come and stay with me, which I do think you might, you must come down for that one night. It’s no distance, you know. And it’s only a children’s show. There won’t be any grown-ups except my cousin Reggie, who is the sweetest man in the world, and Mummy’s Admiral who comes next. Say you will, cherie, for I shall be sixteen–just think of it!–and I do want you to be there. You will, won’t you? Come, promise!”