Helene closed her eyes as the carriage departed from the Place de l'Opera. She didn't want to leave him. She wanted to order the driver to stop, to turn back.
She knew this brief separation was necessary, though. If she vanished like her brother, there would be a search…her driver would have told them that was where she had gone…
She had hoped that she could return home unnoticed, but that turned out to be impossible. As the carriage pulled up in front of the de Chagny house, her father was at the door.
He pushed past the footman and helped her step out.
"Helene, what happened," he said, guiding her up the steps to her mother, "we were so frightened…first Raoul…then you…"
"I am fine," she reassured them, hoping that they did not look too closely at her appearance, "I fell and twisted my ankle. But a friend found me and took me in for the night."
She did her best to answer their questions, neither lying nor telling them the truth. To her relief, they were so glad to have her safely home that they accepted her vague explanations.
Finally, she limped back to her own bedroom, shutting the door against the world and refusing the help of her maid.
When she saw herself in the mirror and was amazed that they had believed her.
Her hair was tangled, her face bruised, her lips still tender from that final crushing kiss in the foyer.
She fell asleep with the key clutched in her hand.
Erik picked up the torn black gown, remembering how he had slashed it in his desperate need to bare her skin to his touch.
If it were not the silk dress in his hands, he would have thought it was a dream.
No woman would willingly come to him like that…like a sacrificial angel.
It was only pity that sent her into his embrace…pity or depravity.
He laid the dress carefully on the carved chest and eased the mask from his face. Laying it down beside her gown, he went down to his work table.
He looked at the pictures of Christine that surrounded him there.
She had denied and betrayed him. Why shouldn't he accept the solace that Helene offered him too willingly?
He turned away from the portraits, not wanting to see those innocent and trusting eyes.
Mindless of his boots and trousers, he strode down into the lake and waded out to the portcullis.
He'd had that damed Vicomte at his mercy…bound to the gate, the noose around his throat.
How ironic that it should be de Chagny's own sister…
He leaned against the cold, damp iron.
"She won't return," he told himself, "she won't return."