CHAPTER XXIII
As Sylvia went slowly and wearily up to her room a sudden horror of Lacville swept over her excited brain.
For the first time since she had been in the Villa du Lac, she locked the door of her bed-room and sat down in the darkness.
She was overwhelmed with feelings of humiliation and pain. She told herself with bitter self-scorn that Paul de Virieu cared nothing for her. If he had cared ever so little he surely would never have done what he had done to-night?
But such thoughts were futile, and soon she rose and turned on the electric light. Then she sat down at a little writing-table which had been thoughtfully provided for her by M. Polperro, and hurriedly, with feverish eagerness, wrote a note.
Dear Count de Virieu—
I am very tired to-night, and I do not feel as if I should be well enough to ride to-morrow.—Yours sincerely,
That was all, but it was enough. Hitherto she had evidently been—hateful thought—what the matrons of Market Dalling called "coming on" in her manner to Count Paul; henceforth she would be cold and distant to him.
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