CHAPTER IX.
Jealousy.
At the door of her home Blakeney parted from Anne Mie, with all the courtesy with which he would have bade adieu to the greatest lady in his own land.
Anne Mie let herself into the house with her own latch-key.

She closed the heavy door noiselessly, then glided upstairs like a quaint little ghost.
But on the landing above she met Paul Deroulede.
He had just come out of his room, and was still fully dressed.
"Anne Mie!" he said, with such an obvious cry of pleasure, that the young girl, with beating heart, paused a moment on the top of the stairs, as if hoping to hear that cry again, feeling that indeed he was glad to see her, had been uneasy because of her long absence.
"Have I made you anxious ?" she asked at last.
"Anxious!" he exclaimed.

"Little one, I have hardly lived this last hour, since I realised that you had gone out so late as this, and all alone." "How did you know ?" "Mademoiselle de Marny knocked at my door an hour ago.

She had gone to your room to see you, and, not finding you there, she searched the house for you, and finally, in her anxiety, came to me.

We did not dare to tell my mother.