Chapter Twenty-nine - Only His Footprints Lingered

Meg leapt to her feet, eyes wide and one hand pressed to her mouth.

How many times had they whispered together as little girls, eagerly planning every detail of their weddings…they were to have been each other's bridesmaid.

That didn't matter now.

Christine had risen, too, and caught her by her shoulders.

"Meg…no one must know," she said with surprising force.

Meg couldn't answer her. She raised one finger to her own lips to assure Christine of her silence.

Christine said no more and they heard Madame Giry's brisk, light step on the stairs.

Leaving Christine with her mother, Meg went downstairs to the empty practice room.

For an hour, she put herself through her exercises as if her mother were there drilling her, forcing herself to forget Christine's secret for a little while.

But, when night came, she found she could not forgot it.

Christine was not in the dormitory, she was sharing Madame Giry's room for now.

Why doesn't she just leave? They are married now…don't stay and torture him like this…give him the chance to forget you…

She could not sleep, for each time she closed her eyes, she saw herself with Erik in that little alley by the courtyard, saw the rage and pain on his face as she whispered the news to him…

She doesn't love you, Erik…

Restless, she knelt up on the bed to look out the window, to look out across the roof.

She saw a man walking alone. His black cape was blowing in the wind, his white mask shone in the moonlight.

He sat down on the parapet, looked out over the dark of Paris.

He deserves to know…

Meg scrambled out of her bed and crept out of the room as quickly as she could without disturbing the other girls.

Barefoot and dressed only in her flannel nightdress, she ran along the hall and out on to the leads.

He was already gone. Only his footprints lingered in the thin dusting of snow on the theatre's roof.

His warning had been too clear. That her next visit to his underground sanctuary would be her last.

She did not dare follow him…not this time.