The TruantsMason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)
General
The Truants
Mason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)
Fiction
Meanwhile Pamela waited at the Villa Pontignard, swinging from hope to
fear, and from fear again to hope. The days chased one another. She
watched the arrival of each train from Marseilles at the little
station below, with an expectant heart; and long after it had departed
towards Italy, she kept within her vision the pathway up the hillside
to the villa. But the travellers did not return. Expectation and
disappointment walked alternately at her elbow all the day, and each
day seemed endless. Yet, when the next day came, it had come all too
quickly. Every morning it seemed to her, as she turned her calendar,
that the days chased one another, racing to the month's end; every
evening, tired out with her vigil, she wondered how they could pass so
slowly. The thirty-first of the month dawned at last. At some time on
this day Millie Stretton would arrive at Eze. She thought of it, as
she rose, with a sinking heart; and then thrust thought aside. She
dared not confront the possibility that the trains might stop at
Roquebrune, and move on to Italy and discharge no passengers upon the
platform. She dared not recognise her dread that this day might close
and the darkness come as fruitlessly as all the rest. It was her last
day of hope. Lionel Callon was waiting. Millie Stretton was arriving.
To-morrow, Tony might come, but he would come too late. Pamela lived
in suspense. Somehow the morning passed. The afternoon _Rapide_ swept
through towards Mentone. Pamela saw the smoke of the engine from her
terrace, and knew that upon that train had come the passenger from
England. Half an hour ago Millie had most likely stepped from her
carriage on to the platform at Eze. And still Tony Stretton and
Warrisden lingered.
Towards dusk she began to despair. In a little while another train was
due. She heard its whistle, saw it stop at the station, and waited
with her eyes fixed upon the hillside path. No one appeared upon it.
She turned and went into the house. She thought for a moment of going
herself to Eze, thrusting herself upon Millie at the cost of any snub;
and while she debated whether the plan could at all avail, the door
was opened, a servant spoke some words about a visitor, and a man
entered the room. Pamela started to her feet. The man stood in the
twilight of the room: his back was against the light of the window.
Pamela could not see his face. But it was not Warrisden, so much she
knew at once. It could only be Tony Stretton.
"So you have come," she cried. "At last! I had given up hope."
She advanced and held out her hand. And some reserve in Tony's
attitude, something of coldness in the manner with which he took her
hand, checked and chilled her.
"It is you?" she asked. "I watched the path. The train has gone some
while."
"Yes, it is I," he replied. "I had to inquire my way at the village.
This is the first time I ever came to Roquebrune."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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