"Good night, and fair dreams, Monsieur." He echoed the words gallantly.

"Of you, sweet!" he cried; and turning away with a gesture of farewell, he set off on his return.
He walked briskly, nor did he look back, though she stood awhile gazing after him.

She was not aware that she gave thought to this; nor that it hurt her.

Yet when bolt and bar had shot behind her, and she had mounted the cold, bare staircase of that day--when she had heard the dull echoing footsteps of her attendants as they withdrew to their lairs and sleeping- places, and still more when she had crossed the threshold of her chamber, and signed to Madame Carlat and her woman to listen--it is certain she felt a lack of something.
Perhaps the chill that possessed her came of that lack, which she neither defined nor acknowledged.

Or possibly it came of the night air, August though it was; or of sheer nervousness, or of the remembrance of Count Hannibal's smile.