I had taken no pains to hide my whereabouts. At each hotel they would know to where I had gone on. For days a feverish excitement took possession of me. Every knock at the door made me start. Would he write? Would he make any sign? I almost prayed not, and yet I feared and longed to hear from him. This is not a school-girl love story I am writing, but the chronicle of my life. I have always despised sentimental heart-burnings, and when I used to read of the heroine dying for love, it always made me laugh. But, oh, never again can I know such bitterness in life as I have suffered in this black week--to have been so near to bliss, and now to be away forever! What good to me were my freedom and riches? As well be married or dead. I never knew before how much I had been looking forward to seeing Antony again. I never realized how, instinctively, for months my soul had been living in the background on this thought. And now it was all finished. I must not be a coward. Oh, how I wished again for grandmamma's spirit! This time I must tear the whole thing out of my life at once. To go on caring for another woman's lover was beneath contempt. When I should have recovered a little, I would go back to England and mix with the world, and gradually forget, and eventually marry the Duke. Fortunately, as the Marquis said, _à vingt ans_ one could never be sure of love lasting. So probably I should soon be cured, and there would be compensation in being an English duchess. It was a great position, as Miss Corrisande K. Trumpet had said. And all men make good enough husbands if you have control of the dollars, I remember she added. Well, I should have control of the dollars. So we should see. The Duke was a gentleman, too, and intelligent, agreeable, and had liberal views. His Duchess might eventually have a "friend," like the rest, he had said. So, no doubt, I should be able to acquire the habit of thus amusing myself. Why should I hesitate, when the best and the noblest gave me examples? All my ideas on those subjects had fallen to pieces like a pack of cards. "'Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die.'" Well, I had never eaten or drunk of happiness yet, and now my heart was dead. So what was the good of it all, anyway? _À quoi bon_? and again, _à quoi bon_? That is what the trees said to me when they tired of calling for Antony. I breakfasted and lunched and dined and walked miles every day. I loathed my food. I hated the faces of the people who stared at me. I fear I even snapped at McGreggor. Roy was my only comfort.