He opened his arms, then, and she went to him, and for a space they clung together in silence. For the last time he set his lips to hers, held her once more against his heart. Then slowly they drew apart, stricken eyes gazing lingeringly into other eyes as stricken, and presently the closing of the terrace door told her that he had gone, and that she must turn her feet to the solitary path of those who have said farewell to love. Henceforth, she would be alone--living or dying, quite alone. It was long past midnight when Claire returned from the Dower House. She found Jean sitting beside the grey embers of a burnt-out fire, her hands lying folded upon her knee, her eyes staring stonily in front of her in a fixed, unseeing gaze. Claire called to her softly, as when one wakes a sleeper. “Jean!” Jean turned her head. “So you have got back?” she said dully. She stood up stiffly, as though her limbs were cramped. “Claire, I am going away--right away from here--to Beirnfels.” “Why?” asked Claire. She waited tensely for the answer. “Blaise has been here. He asked me to go away with him. I’ve sent him back to Nesta.” The short, stilted sentences fell mechanically from her lips. She spoke exactly like a child repeating a lesson learned by rote. Claire’s eyes grew very pitiful. “And must you go to Beirnfels alone?” she asked quietly. “Won’t you take me with you?” “_Will you come?_”--incredulously. “Of course I’ll come. I shouldn’t dream of letting you go by yourself.” And then, all at once, Jean’s tired body, exhausted by the soul’s long conflict, gave way, and she slipped to the ground in a dead faint. CHAPTER XXXV--THE EVE OF DEPARTURE A WEEK later Jean sat at the foot of the stairs and surveyed with faint amusement the motley collection of trunks and suit-cases which thronged the hall. She was still looking pale and worn, strung up to face her self-imposed exile from the country which now held everything that was dear to her, but no enormity of sorrow, would ever blind Jean for long to the whimsical aspect that attends so many of the little things of daily life. “What a lot of useless lumber we women carry about with us wherever we go!” she commented. “Five--six--_seven_ packages to supply the needs of two solitary females--and Heaven only knows how many brown paper parcels will be required at the last moment for all the things we shall find we have forgotten when the time actually comes to start.” Claire, standing on the flight of stairs above and viewing the assemblage in the hall from over the top of the banister rail, giggled helplessly. “Yes, they do look a lot,” she admitted. “However”--hopefully--“there’ll be plenty of room for them all when we actually get to Beirnfels.”