"Shut the door," whispered the Countess, and the maid obeyed, asking under her breath: "What are you going to do, my lady?" The Countess with a wild gesture tore her purple gown wider open at the throat. "I don't know--I will leave the place, I cannot endure it--why should I endure it?" "Hush! Hush!" whispered the maid. Her mistress stifled a little hysterical sound and again caught her companion's arm. Swift and noiseless they descended the steps and passed under the shadows of the high rustling trees; then Honoria stopped, holding back her mistress. "You can't run away now," she said with an air of resolution, "whatever has happened, my lady; why, you have neither mantle, nor hat, nor money--and who is to shelter you till the coach goes, here in a strange place?" The Countess pressed her open hand to her forehead. "I will not stay to be scorned--I will not," she cried frantically. "I am going back to my father if I have to walk; he can but murder me, and that were to be preferred to life with these!" And she tried to press on through the low sweet shrubs. "You are in a frenzy," said Honoria quietly, not loosening her hold. "Return home! it is madness, my lady. Consider a little." The Countess shuddered. "What is there to consider? I am sick with hate!" "What did they do?" questioned Honoria shrewdly. "They did not fight?" "Would to God they had!" answered Rose's wife furiously. "But I am of too little account to bring gentlemen's swords to the crossing! 'What do we marry you for if not for our convenience?' he said, and sent me from the room. And Marius turned his back on me!" She flung herself on the maid's bosom, clinging round her neck, choking with bitter weeping in her throat. In the darkness cast by the peaceful trees, alone in the free air with her one confidante, she let herself go utterly, the nameless passion that possessed her broke forth, tearing speech to tatters. "How I have loved him! Bear witness how I have hated him, Honoria! Every time he looked at me 'twas as if he saw a smirch on his escutcheon. He never troubled to speak to me of any matter of his world, taking it for granted I could not understand; my people were not genteel; I should be waiting in my father's shop. But there was always Marius. Did he not follow me in Paris? Did he not wait beneath my window? Did he not colour when I spoke to him, as if I had been a princess, Honoria? Did he not?" She freed herself from the maid's support, and leant heavily against the straight trunk behind her. "My God! My God!" she cried violently. "He spoke to me after his brother's fashion, and I was scorned of both of them!" Honoria looked at her curiously. "I should not have thought it of Mr. Marius," she said; "but these great gentlemen are strange. But they are men," she added quickly, "and you are a woman, my lady. He was in love with you once, and might be again, I'll swear to it!"