So Vaura returns and, wishing to be quite alone before Lady Esmondet
joins her, steps into the conservatory, but there her sense of
loneliness is so complete, that she returns to the _salon_ immediately
adjoining, and drawing the heavy brocade curtains dividing it from the
others, she feels that she can give herself up to thoughts of Lionel;
she knows now that he is gone; she would give worlds to have him by
her side; she throws herself onto a lounge with her great white arms
in a favourite attitude thrown above her head. But in the moment of
her entrance into the conservatory, Lionel had seen her from the
garden and came in noiselessly to make sure; she is alone, and he is
now gazing at her through the glass door; her bosom heaves, her flower
face is lovely in its transparent soft paleness, and her eyelids are
wet with the tear-drops she will not let fall, her lips move and he
opens the door on its noiseless hinges, she says softly:
"Oh, darling, why did you go?" and she throws herself on her side and
buries her face in her arms.
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