Let her go to Ashton and see for herself the sort of man he was.
"I won't bother you with my unwelcome company any longer. You will be able to get breakfast in the restaurant, and you will find that most people here understand English.... Good-bye----"
"You are not trying to tell me that you wish me to stay, surely?" he submitted drily.
"Certainly not; after all, it's your own fault you came."
He did not answer, perhaps he could not trust himself; he raised his hat and turned away unseeingly, and Esther clutched her suit-case tightly and walked away with her head in the air, trying to look as if she knew every inch of the Gare St. Lazare and had been there thousands of times before.
But her heart was beating up in her throat, and she would have given a great deal, had it been compatible with dignity, to rush after him and beg him to stay.
She wandered out of the station, not knowing where to go, Raymond seemed to have faded into the background; she only thought of him subconsciously; it was the figure of Micky Mellowes that worried her--she could not forget him.
Supposing he had really written those letters? "But he didn't," she told herself in an agony. "I know he didn't."
She took one of the letters from her suit-case and stared at the handwriting--Raymond's writing. The whole thing was too preposterous.
She did not know what she meant to do, or where she meant to go; it no longer seemed that she had come here for any specific purpose.
The early morning greyness and chilliness had faded; the sun had risen and cleared away the mists.
She found herself in some gardens where an elderly man was feeding sparrows; she sat down on a bench and watched him.
It seemed years ago that she went down to Enmore with June--since she sat in the little inn with Micky and heard those two men talking.
The hot blood beat into her cheeks as she remembered something that for the moment she had forgotten--that Raymond Ashton was married!
The man gave the sparrows his last crumbs and went away. The little brown birds came hopping to Esther's feet, looking up at her with bright, eager eyes, as if expecting her to supply a further meal.
The sun faded and went in, and a few drops of rain came pattering down. She rose and began to walk on slowly. The light suit-case seemed to have grown heavy since yesterday.