The TruantsMason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)
General
The Truants
Mason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)
Fiction
"No," she said slowly. "Telegraph to me at the Villa Pontignard,
Roquebrune, Alpes Maritimes, France. I shall be travelling thither
immediately."
Her decision was taken upon an instant. It was the logical outcome of
her thoughts and of Warrisden's departure; and since Warrisden went
because of Millie Stretton, Pamela's journey to the South of France
was due, in a measure, to that lady, too. Yet no one would have been
more astonished than Millie Stretton had she learned of Pamela's visit
at this time. She would have been quick to change her own plans; but
she had no knowledge of whither Pamela's thoughts were leading her.
When Callon in the hansom cab had said to her, "Come South," her first
swift reflection had been, "Pamela will be safe in England." She
herself had refused to go south with Pamela. Pamela's desire to go was
to her mind a mere false pretext to get her away from her one friend.
If she did not go south, she was very sure that Pamela would not.
There had seemed to her no safer place than the Riviera. But she was
wrong. Here, in the village of the Three Poplars, Pamela had made her
decision.
"I shall go to Roquebrune as soon as I can make arrangements for a
servant or two," she said.
"Roquebrune," said Warrisden, as he wrote down the address. "I once
walked up a long flight of steps to that village many years ago.
Perhaps you were at the villa then. I wonder. You must have been a
little girl. It was one February. I came over from Monte Carlo, and we
walked up from the station. We met the schoolmaster."
"M. Giraud!" exclaimed Pamela.
"Was that his name? He had written a little history of the village and
the Corniche road. He took me under his wing. We went into a wine shop
on the first floor of a house in the middle of the village, and we sat
there quite a long time. He asked us about Paris and London with an
eagerness which was quite pathetic. He came down with us to the
station, and his questions never ceased. I suppose he was lonely
there."
Pamela nodded her head.
"Very. He did not sleep all night for thinking of what you had told
him."
"You were there, then?" cried Warrisden.
"Yes; M. Giraud used to read French with me. He came to me one
afternoon quite feverish. Two Englishmen had come up to Roquebrune,
and had talked to him about the great towns and the lighted streets.
He was always dreaming of them. Poor man, he is at Roquebrune still,
no doubt."
She spoke with a great tenderness and pity, looking out of the window,
and for the moment altogether lost to her surroundings. Warrisden
roused her from her reverie.
"I must be going away."
Pamela's horse was brought to the door, and she mounted.
"Walk down the hill beside my horse," she said; "just as you did
on that other day, when the hill was slippery, your hand upon his
neck--so."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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