A thought slid through Annette's mind like a snake through grass. "_He_ will hear of it. He is sure to hear of it. That will hurt him worse than if I were drowned." "I don't care what I do," she said, meeting his eyes without flinching. It was he who for a moment winced when he saw the smouldering flame in them. He laughed again, the old light, inconsequent laugh which came to him so easily, with which he met good and bad fortune alike. "When you are as old as I am," he said not unkindly, "you will do as I am doing now, take the good the gods provide you, and trouble your mind about nothing else. For there's nothing in the world or out of it that is worth troubling about. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing." "Nothing," echoed Annette hoarsely. CHAPTER II "Et partout le spectre de l'amour, Et nullepart l'amour." The train was crawling down to Fontainebleau. Annette sat opposite her companion, looking not at him but at the strange country through which they were going. How well she knew it! How often she had gone down to Fontainebleau. But to-day all the familiar lines were altered. The townlets, up to their eyes in trees, seemed alien, dead. Presently the forest, no longer fretted by the suburbs, came close up on both sides of the rail. What had happened to the oaks that they seemed drawn up in serried lines to watch her pass, like soldiers at a funeral! A cold horror brooded over everything. She looked at her companion and withdrew her eyes. He had said he was better than the Seine. But now she came to meet his eyes fixed on her, was he better? She was not sure. She was not sure of anything, except that life was unendurable and that she did not care what happened to her. There had been sordid details, and there would be more. He had said it would be better if she had a wedding ring, and he had bought her one. The shopman had smiled offensively as he had found one to fit her. She set her teeth at the remembrance. But she would go through with it. She did not care. There was nothing left in the world to care about. It was Dick Le Geyt who, thoughtless as he was, had shown some little thought for her, had taken her to a restaurant and obliged her to eat, had put her into the train, and then had waylaid and dismissed his valet, who brought his luggage to the station, and who seemed at first determined not to let his master go without him, indeed was hardly to be shaken off, until Dick whispered something to him, when the man shrugged his shoulders and turned away.