CHAPTER XXI.
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS Madame Cerise, well knowing she had accelerated the march of events to a two-step, calmly sat herself down in the little housekeeper's room off the lower hall and, leaving Louise to her moody solitude upstairs, awaited the inevitable developments.
Outside the weather was cold and blustering.

The wind whirled its burden of snowflakes in every direction with blinding, bewildering impartiality.

It was a bad day to be out, thought the old Frenchwoman; but a snowstorm was not likely to deter an anxious lover.

She calculated the time it would take Monsieur Weldon to arrive at the mansion: if he was prompt and energetic he could cover the distance in an hour and a half by train or three hours by motor car.

But he must prepare for the journey, and that would consume some time; perhaps she need not expect him within two hours at the earliest.
She read, to pass away the time, selecting a book from a shelf of well-worn French novels.