Mrs. Stoddart vouchsafed no reply. Annette, more tired than she would allow, leaned back. Her eyes fell on the same view, which might have been painted on a drop scene so fixed was it, so identical in colour and light day after day. But to-day it proved itself genuine by the fact that a large German steamer, not there yesterday, was moored in the bay, so placed that it seemed to be impaled on the spike of the tallest tower, and keeping up the illusion by making from time to time a rumbling and unseemly noise as if in pain. "You must own now that I am well," said Annette. "Very nearly. You shall come up to the tomato-gardens to-morrow, and see the Spanish women working in their white trousers." "My head never aches now." "That is a good thing." "Has the time come when I may ask a few questions?" Mrs. Stoddart hardly looked up from her knitting as she said tranquilly-- "Yes, my child, if there is anything on your mind." "I suppose Dick Le Geyt is--dead. I felt sure he was dying that last day at Fontainebleau. It won't be any shock to me to know that he is dead." "He is not dead." A swift glance showed Mrs. Stoddart that Annette was greatly surprised. "How is he?" she asked after a moment. "Did he really get well again? I thought it was not possible." "It was not." "Then he is not riding again yet?" "No. I am afraid he will never ride again." "Then his back was really injured, after all?" "Yes. It was spinal paralysis." "He did enjoy life so," said Annette. "Poor Dick!" "I made inquiries about him again a short time ago. He is not unhappy. He knows nothing and nobody, and takes no notice. The brain was affected, and it is only a question of time--a few months, a few years. He does not suffer." "For a long time I thought he and I had died together." "You both all but died, Annette." "Where is he now?" "In his aunt's house in Paris. She came down before I left." "I hope she seemed a kind woman." "She seemed a silly one. She brought her own doctor and Mr. Le Geyt's valet with her. She evidently distrusted the Fontainebleau doctor and me. She paid him up and dismissed him at once, and she as good as dismissed me." "Perhaps," said Annette, "she thought you and the doctor were in collusion with _me_. I suppose some lurid story, with me in the middle of it, reached her at once." "No doubt. The valet had evidently told her that his master had not gone down to Fontainebleau alone. She arrived prepared for battle." "And where was I all the time?" "You were in the country, a few miles out of Fontainebleau, at a house the doctor knew of. He helped me to move you there directly you became unconscious. Until you fell ill you would not leave Mr. Le Geyt. It was fortunate you were not there when his aunt arrived." "I should not have cared." "No. You were past caring about anything. You were not in your right mind. But surely, Annette,"--Mrs. Stoddart spoke very slowly,--"you care _now_?"