CHAPTER XIX.
Left alone by her angry, outraged husband, Camille flung out of her chair and dragged herself upstairs to her own room. There she locked the door and threw herself down upon the bed in tearless despair.
Hours passed over her head, and still she lay there mute and still as though stunned by the awful shock she had received. The dainty bonnet, now crushed and spoiled where it was pressed upon the pillow, still adorned her head, the jetted wrap clung about her regal shoulders. She had removed nothing; she had thought of nothing save the awful fact that the husband she loved in her jealous, tigress fashion had found her out in her sin, and was going to put her away from him forever. She lay there a long, long time so dazed andwretched that she was conscious of but one thought—a sick longing to die at once and be out of her horrible trouble.
At last her cramped and uncomfortable position began to make itself felt in tired and aching limbs, recalling her to bodily consciousness. Rising slowly to a sitting posture, she flung off the bonnet and wrap, and drew out the pins from her tawny tresses, letting them fall loosely on her shoulders.
A strange sense of desolation, of friendlessness, stole over her, as her heavy eyes roved about the room. Out of all her fashionable acquaintances she had no bosom friend, no one to turn to in this terrible hour. She thought for an instant of her mother-in-law, then a shamed consciousness stole over her that she had taken no pains to retain the love of that good woman since she had married her son. She could not look to her for consolation.
Suddenly a new idea presented itself to her mind.
“Finette!â€
The French maid had, in many respects, been to her a trusted friend as well as a servant. She was clever and crafty, and Camille had bitterly missed her since she had gone into a temporary exile with the understanding that she should be recalled as soon as her mistress could cajole Norman de Vere into willingness for her return.
“Oh! if Finette were only here, she would advise me what to do—she might suggest something,†the unhappy woman muttered; and with the thought a tiny little ray of hope began to flicker into life within her breast. She continued: “I will send for my maid. I need not ask his permission now. I have a right to claim the presence of my best friend in this dark hour.â€
She crossed to a small writing-table, and, sitting down, hastily scrawled a note in French to Finette. Sealing and addressing the envelope to an address in Jacksonville, she touched a bell, and in a few minutes it was answered by Nancy, the house-maid.
“Take this letter down to Sam and tell him to deliver it immediately,†she said, curtly; then, as Nancy stared in surprise at her heavy eyes and colorless cheeks, she slammed the door quickly in her face.
The house-maid went down to the errand-boy, and dispatched him on his mission with the remark:
“You better make dem black legs fly, too, ’cause madame’s in a towerin’ rage, her face as white as snow, her eyes a-blazin’, and her hair hangin’ down her back all tangled up like she been a-tearin’ of it out by de han’fuls. ’Spect dat’s whyshe done sent for Mamzellie Frenchy to come and fix it up in style like she useter.â€