"Lucy will not leave us to-day", said Mrs. Bretton, coaxingly at breakfast; "she knows we can procure a second respite".
"I would not ask for one if I might have it for a word", said I. "I long to get the good-bye over and to be settled in the Rue Fossette again. I must go this morning; I must go directly; my trunk is packed and corded".
It appeared, however, that my going depended upon Graham; he had said he would accompany me, and it so fell out that he was engaged all day, and only returned home at dusk. Then ensued a little combat of words. Mrs. Bretton and her son pressed me to remain one night more. I could have cried, so irritated and eager was I to be gone. I longed to leave them as the criminal on the scaffold longs for the ax to descend—that is, I wished the pang over. How much I wished it, they could not tell. On these points, mine was a state of mind out of their experience.
It was dark when Dr. John handed me from the carriage at Madame Beck's door. The lamp above was lit; it rained a November drizzle, as it had rained all day: the lamplight gleamed on the wet pavement. Just such a night was it as that on which, not a year ago, I had first stopped at this very threshold; just similar was the scene. I remembered the very shapes of the paving-stones which I had noted with idle eye while, with a thick-beating heart, I waited the unclosing of that door at which I stood—a solitary and a suppliant. On that night, too, I had briefly met him who now stood with me. Had I ever reminded him of that rencontre, or explained it? I had not, nor ever felt the inclination to do so: it was a pleasant thought, laid by in my own mind, and best kept there.
Graham rung the bell. The door was instantly opened, for it was just that period of the evening when the half-boarders took their departure—consequently, Rosine was on the alert.
"Don't come in", said I to him; but he stepped a moment into the well-lighted vestibule. I had not wished him to see that "the water stood in my eyes", for his was too kind a nature ever to be needlessly shown such signs of sorrow. He always wished to heal—to relieve—when, physician as he was, neither cure nor alleviation were, perhaps, in his power.
