"That is for Philippe," he said. "We owe you a very great deal, it seems, Miss Martin, and I have come belatedly to thank you and ask you to forgive me for my rather cavalier treatment of you at the Villa Mireille."
I said rather feebly: "You had other things on your mind, monsieur." I wanted to tell him not to bother about me but to go back to his own worries and his own personal tragedy, but I couldn't, so I sat and let him thank me again with his grave courteous charm, and tried not to watch the door while he talked, or to think how like Raoul's his voice was.
I realised suddenly that he had left the past and was talking about the future.
“… He will stay with me at the Villa Mireille for the time being. Miss Martin-dare I hope that after your very terrible experience you will stay with him?"
I stared at him for some time, stupidly, before I realised what he was asking me. He must, in his own tragic preoccupation, have forgotten Raoul's confession concerning me. I said: "I-I don't know. Just at the moment-"
"I quite see. I had no right to put it to you now. You look exhausted, child, and no wonder. Later, perhaps, you can think it over."
There was a queer sound from the corridor, a kind of slow, heavy shuffling. Then I knew what it was, Léon, leaving the Château Valmy. I looked down at my hands.
Hippolyte was saying steadily: "If under the circumstances you prefer not to spend the night here, there's a place for you as long as you choose to stay at the Villa Mireille."
"Why, thank you. Yes, I-I would like that. Thank you very much."
"Then if we can find someone to take you down -?”
He had glanced at William, who said immediately: "Of course." Then he stammered and added awkwardly: "I say, sir, I'm terribly sorry about taking the car. We thought-that is, we were in a hurry. I really am awfully sorry."
"It's nothing." Hippolyte dismissed the theft with a gesture. "I believe you thought you might prevent a tragedy-a worse one than what actually happened." His eyes moved sombrely to the door. "I'm sure you will understand me when I say that-this-was not altogether a tragedy." Another glance at William, this time with the faintest glimmer of a smile underlying the sombre look. "You'll find your own-extraordinary vehicle-outside. And now goodnight."
He went. I picked up my coffee-cup absently, but the stuff was cold and skinning over. I set it down again. A log fell in with a soft crash of sparks. No movement now outside in the corridor. I looked at the clock. It had stopped. The world-without-end hour… Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour, whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you…
"Linda," said William. He came and sat beside me on the sofa. He reached out and took both my cold hands in his. Safe, gentle hands; steady, sensible hands. "Linda," he said again, and cleared his throat.
I woke to the present as to a cold touch on the shoulder. I sat up straighter. I said: "William, I want to thank you most awfully for what you've done. I don't know what I'd have done without you tonight, honestly I don't. I'd no business to call you in the way I did, but I was so terribly on my own, and you were my only friend."
"It's a friend's privilege to be used," said William. He loosed my hands. There was a pause. He said: "If you are going to stay with Philippe, I might see you now and again, mightn't I?"
"I don't suppose I'll be staying."
"No?"
"No."
"I see." He got to his feet and smiled down at me. "Shall I run you down to the Villa Mireille now in the jeep?"
"No, thanks, William. I-think I'll wait."
"Okay. I'll say goodnight, then. You'll look me up before you leave, won't you?"
"Of course. Goodnight. And-thanks a lot, William. Thank you for everything."
I forgot him almost as soon as the front door shut behind him. Someone had come out of the library. I could hear Hippolyte's voice, and Raoul's, talking quietly. They were coming along the corridor together.
My heart was hurting me. I got up quickly and moved towards the door. Hippolyte was talking, saying something about Héloïse. I shrank against the wall to the side of the door so that they wouldn't see me as they passed.
“… A nursing-home," said Hippolyte. "I left her with Doctor Fauré. He'll look after her." There was something more-something about an allowance, a pension, and "somewhere away from Valmy, Paris or Cannes," and finally the words, dimly heard as they moved away along the corridor: "her heart," and "not very long, perhaps…”
They had reached the hall. Hippolyte was saying goodnight. I went softly out into the corridor and hesitated there, waiting for Hippolyte to leave him. I was shaking with panic. Léon and Héloïse might have faded already into the past, poor ghosts with no more power to terrify, but I had a ghost of my own to lay.
Raoul's voice, now, asking a question. Seddon's answer, almost indistinguishable. It sounded like "Gone." A sharp query from Raoul, and, clearly, from Seddon: "Yes, sir. A few minutes ago."
I heard Raoul say, grimly: "I see. Thank you. Goodnight, Seddon."
Then I realised what he had been asking. I forgot Hippolyte's presence, and Seddon's. I began to run down the corridor. I called: "Raoul!"
My voice was drowned in the slam of the front door. I had reached the hall when I heard the engine start. Seddon's voice said, surprised: "Why, Miss Martin, I thought you'd gone with Mr. Blake!" I didn't answer. I flew across the hall, tore open the great door, and ran out into the darkness.
The Cadillac was already moving. As I reached the bottom of the steps she was wheeling away from the house. I called again, but he didn't hear-or at least the car moved, gathering speed. Futilely, I began to run.
I was still twenty yards behind it when it slid gently into the first curve of the zigzag, and out of sight.
If I had stopped to think I should never have done what I did. But I was past thinking. I only knew that I had something to say that must be said if I was ever to sleep again. And I wasn't the only one that had to be healed. I turned without hesitation and plunged into the path that short-circuited the zigzag.
This was a foot-way, no more, that dived steeply down the hillside towards the Valmy bridge. I had taken it with Philippe many a time. It was well-kept, and the steps, where they occurred, were wide and safe, but it could be slippery, and in the dark it could probably be suicide.
I didn't care. Some kind freak of chance had made me keep Philippe's torch in my pocket, and now by its half-hearted light I went down that dizzy little track as if all my ghosts hunted me at heel.
Off to the left the Cadillac's lights still bore away from me on the first long arm of the zigzag. He was driving slowly. The engine made very little sound. I hurtled, careless of sprains and bruises, down through the wood.
It couldn't be done, of course. He was still below me when he took the first bend and the headlights bore back to the north, making the shadows of the trees where I ran reel and flicker so that they seemed to catch at my feet like a net.
The path twisted down like a snake. The whole wood marched and shifted in his lights like trees in a nightmare. Just before he wheeled away again I saw the next segment of my path doubling back ten feet below me. I didn't wait to negotiate the corner with its steps and its handrail. I slithered over, half on my back, to the lower level, and gained seven precious seconds before the dark pounced again in the wake of the retreating car.
The third arm of the zigzag was the longest. It took him away smoothly to the left without much of a drop… I would do it. At the next northern bend I could be in the road before he got there.
I flung myself down a steep smooth drop, caught at a handrail to steady myself, and then went three at a time down a straight flight of steps. The rail had driven a splinter into my hand, but I hardly felt it. A twig whipped my face, half-blinding me, but I just blinked and ran on. Down the steps, round, along over a little gorge bridged with a flagstone… and the great headlights had swung north again and the shadows were once more madly wheeling back and away from me. But I was below him now. I could do it. Only fifty yards away the track ran right to the bend of the road, where a high bank held the cambered corner.