This surely must be part of the
famous Forest of Montmorency, which his guide-book mentioned as being
the great attraction of Lacville? He wondered cynically whether Sylvia
had ever been so far, and then he plunged into the wood, along one of the
ordered alleys which to his English eyes looked so little forest-like,
and yet which made walking there very pleasant.
Suddenly there fell on his ear the sound of horses trotting quickly. He
looked round, and some hundred yards or so to his right, at a place where
four roads met under high arching trees, he saw two riders, a man and a
woman, pass by. They had checked their horses to a walk, and as their
voices floated over to him, the woman's voice seemed extraordinarily,
almost absurdly, familiar--in fact, he could have sworn it was Sylvia
Bailey's voice.
Chester stopped in his walk and shrugged his shoulders impatiently. She
must indeed be dwelling in his thoughts if he thus involuntarily evoked
her presence where she could by no stretch of possibility be.
But that wandering echo brought Sylvia Bailey very near to Chester, and
once more he recalled her as he had seen her sitting at the gambling
table the night before.
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