Then, as the sun began to drop quickly, Madame de Pastourelles rose, and went to the corner of the chateau, to see if the gentlemen were in sight.

But in less than a minute Mrs.Welby called her back.
'I must go in now,' she said, fretfully.

'This place is really _too_ cold!' 'She won't let me go to meet them,' thought Eugenie, involuntarily; sharply reproaching herself, a moment afterwards, for the mere thought.
But when Elsie had been safely escorted home, Eugenie slipped back through the darkening streets, taking good care that her path should not lead her across her father and Arthur Welby.
She fled towards the western flight of the Hundred Steps, and ran down the vast staircase towards the Orangerie, and the still shining lake beyond, girdled with vaporous woods.

A majesty of space and light enwrapt her, penetrated, as everywhere at Versailles, with memory, with the bitterness and the glory of human things.

In the distance the voices of the children, still playing beside their nurses on the upper terrace, died away.