It happened that she had clasped her hands behind her back, leaving the primroses at her waist uncovered and half falling from the ribbon. In a moment he had reached out his hand and taken them. She leapt back, as if she feared that he might take more, and ran back toward the house, placing a rough, tangle of brier between herself and this robber. Her laughing face looked at him through the brier. "You have your primroses," she said, "but I did not give them to you. You want too much, I think." "I want what that ribbon binds," he answered. But she turned away and ran toward the house, without waiting to hear. CHAPTER XXXIII DORMER COLVILLE IS BLIND It was late when Dormer Colville reached the quiet sea-coast village of Royan on the evening of his return to the west. He did not seek Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence until the luncheon hour next morning, when he was informed that she was away from home. "Madame has gone to Paris," the man said, who, with his wife, was left in charge of the empty house. "It was a sudden resolution, one must conclude," he added, darkly, "but Madame took no one into her confidence. She received news by post, which must have brought about this sudden decision." Colville was intimately acquainted with his cousin's affairs; many hazarded an opinion that, without the help of Madame St. Pierre Lawrence, this rolling stone would have been bare enough. She had gone to Paris for one of two reasons, he concluded. Either she had expected him to return thither from London, and had gone to meet him with the intention of coming to some arrangement as to the disposal of the vast sum of money now in Turner's hands awaiting further developments, or some hitch had occurred with respect to John Turner himself. Dormer Colville returned, thoughtfully, to his lodging, and in the evening set out for Paris. He himself had not seen Turner since that morning in the banker's office in the Rue Lafayette, when they had parted so unceremoniously, in a somewhat heated spirit. But, on reflection, Colville, who had sought to reassure himself with regard to one whose name stood for the incarnation of gastronomy and mental density in the Anglo-French clubs of Paris, had come to the conclusion that nothing was to be gained by forcing a quarrel upon Turner. It was impossible to bring home to him an accusation of complicity in an outrage which had been carried through with remarkable skill. And when it is impossible to force home an accusation, a wise man will hold his tongue.