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Updated: June 26, 2025
At last she fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamt a disturbing dream. She found herself wandering about the Châlet des Muguets, trying to find a way out of the locked and shuttered building. The ugly little rooms were empty. It was winter, and she was shivering with cold. Someone must have locked her in by mistake. She had been forgotten.... "Toc, toc, toc!" at the door.
The drawing-room of the Châlet des Muguets was a little larger than the dining-room, but it was equally bare of anything pretty or even convenient. There was a small sofa, covered with cheap tapestry, and four uncomfortable-looking chairs to match; on the sham marble mantelpiece stood a gilt and glass clock and two chandeliers. There was not a book, not a paper, not a flower.
Sylvia did her part by cutting some bread and butter, and, as she stood at the white table opposite the kitchen window, she saw that beyond the small piece of garden which lay at the back of the house was a dense chestnut wood, only separated from the Châlet des Muguets by a straggling hedge. "Does the wood belong to you, too?" she asked. Madame Wachner shook her head.
It was with relief that they both became aware a few moments later that they were on the outskirts of Lacville. "Here is the Châlet des Muguets!" exclaimed Sylvia. "Isn't it a funny little place?" The English lawyer stared at the bright pink building; with curiosity and amusement.
The French police do not stand on ceremony even with potential criminals. "And now," said the Count to the coachman, "five louis, my friend, if you can get us to the Châlet des Muguets in seven minutes " They began driving at a breakneck pace, the driver whipping up his horse, lashing it in a way that horrified Chester. The light little carriage rocked from side to side.
This fact had enlisted to a special degree Madame Wachner's interest and liking for the two young widows. Sylvia rang the primitive bell which hung by the door which alone gave access, apart from the windows, to the Châlet des Muguets. After some moments the day-servant employed by Madame Wachner opened the door with the curt words, "Monsieur and Madame are in Paris."
Then, again, although the arrangement that she should come to supper at the Châlet des Muguets to-night had been made that afternoon, the Wachners had been home, but they had evidently forgotten to tell their servant that they were expecting a visitor, for only two places were laid in the little dining-room into which they all three walked on entering the house.
It was painful to be reminded of him now, in this way, and by a woman who she knew disliked and despised him. She suddenly felt sorry that she had accepted the Wachner's invitation. To-night the way to the Châlet des Muguets seemed longer than usual far longer than it had seemed the last time Sylvia had walked there, when Count Paul had been her companion.
She scribbled a few lines on the scrap of paper, and then, quickly making her way to the dining-room, she placed her unconventional invitation on the round table, and went out into the hall. As she opened the front door of the Châlet des Muguets Sylvia was met by a blast of hot air. She looked out dubiously. She was thoroughly unnerved as she expressed it to herself, "upset."
After the kitchen, this bed-room struck Sylvia as being the pleasantest room in the Châlet des Muguets, and that although, like the dining-room and drawing-room, it was extraordinarily bare. There was no chest of drawers, no dressing-table, no cupboard to be seen. Madame Wachner's clothes hung on pegs behind the door, and there was a large brass-bound trunk in a corner of the room.
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