What could the Rajah have said to him? What knowledge could he have imparted which could change his love to hatred? She could hardly believe it had happened, that the man who had looked at her with reverence and adoration should be transformed in a few seconds into one who regarded her with dislike and disgust.

At length she was aware that her knees were weak, that her legs felt as if they could hold her up no longer. Slowly she took her eyes from the end of the road along which the carriage carrying Robert had long since disappeared.

She turned and re-entered the Church. Instinctively she moved towards the last pew and sat down in the very spot where Robert had taken her into his arms and they had exchanged their first kiss – a kiss which to her had been in the nature of a solemn vow.

It was here, she thought, that she had first known real happiness, a happiness which was to last but a few minutes and be lost almost before she could realise it was hers.

What had happened? Why did he hate her? What had the Rajah said? The questions hammered themselves against her brain, but she could find no answers for them.

Now at last the numb feeling was passing and the pain of her anguish swept over her like a bitter wind. She had lost him, lost the man she loved, lost the one thing in life which seemed decent and worthwhile. All too clearly now she could see beneath the tinsel and glitter of Monte Carlo and know it for what it was.

Many things which had appeared glamorous and even beautiful in these past weeks were now revealed to Mistral in the piteous, clear light of truth as being indecent and horrible.

She saw the flashing teeth of the Rajah against his dark face, saw again the great circular divan in the scented room of his Villa, and shuddered. She saw Stella’s puzzled eyes strangely at variance with the painted flamboyance of her face and the gaudiness of her gown. She saw the avarice and greedy expressions on the faces of the men and women playing at the gambling tables, their fingers bent like the claws of a bird of prey as they reached out to clutch their winnings, she saw Jeanne with trembling hands muttering the Penitential Litany, and lastly Aunt Emilie’s air of triumph and defiance seemed in retrospect somehow infinitely sinister.

There indeed was the clue to everything – Aunt Emilie!

She knew the answers to all the questions, could, if she cared to do so, explain what had happened in the past few days, from the action of the Rajah in abducting her from the Restaurant des Fleurs to Robert’s grim and bitter expression as he turned away to leave her on the Church steps. Yes, Aunt Emilie knew the answers, but how could she ask her for them?