sob burst forth.
Strong-minded and of powerful emotions, Virginia Thorpe was a queenly woman, a woman whose friendship was prized by her acquaintances, and whose wealth of intellect was a charm to a strikingly graceful figure; and the love that was in her nature once awakened, grew and intensified day by day till at last a steadfast blaze of trust and confidence glorified her personality.
Such she bore for Corway – until she discovered he loved Hazel. Oh, what a change then came over her, as her heart yielded up its dearest desire in tears of scalding bitterness.
“Oh, Joe! tenderly I loved you, passionately I adored you, and you led me to believe that you loved none but me, yet all the time your heart had gone out to another, and this is no doubt the real reason you wanted our engagement to be kept a secret, and my love, which no woman had greater, was but a plaything!” she thought to herself.
She looked at the roses she had unconsciously held in her hand, with infinite tenderness, then crushed them, and broke them.
“Farewell, sweet emblems of truth and love.” And throwing the flowers, which she had so fondly kissed but a few moments before, among dead leaves on the ground, said in a voice that trembled with the pathos of the death of love’s young dream:
“Thus perish all my young life’s happy hopes. Gone! Gone among the things that are dead.” Sobs of bitterest disappointment again burst from her lips.
Suddenly she brushed her hand across her eyes – it was then that Virginia’s transformation took place.
From the guileless, joyful, winsome maid, emerged a woman – beautiful, but alas, subtle, alert and avenging. With a stamp of her foot she said, with sudden determination:
“Away with these tears. What have I to do with human feelings now? I will conquer this weakness, though in the process my heart be changed to stone.
“Now, Corway, beware of me, for you shall know that the love you have toyed with has changed to hate, an unappeasable, undying hate, and you shall learn, too, that a woman’s revenge will pause at nothing that will help to gratify it.” Then she slipped out of the conservatory, with the intention to get to her room, if possible, unobserved, but was halted by hearing Constance say: “Virginia, dear! I wish to make you acquainted with Lord Beauchamp.”
There was no chance for evasion or escape. Virginia had not noticed them as she passed, for they were hidden by the angle of the conservatory, and she was quite close to them when addressed by Constance.
Quick of wit, the girl realized that some excuse was necessary to account for the appearance of her tear-stained face. Halting in her flight, she drew her handkerchief and commenced to rub her eyes, and speaking with faltering lips, for the wound in her heart was yet raw and tender, she said: “Your Lordship finds me at an awkward moment – something has gotten into my eye, and causes me acute pain, but please believe, I esteem it an honor to number Your Grace among my acquaintances.”
“Dear heart!” exclaimed Constance, at once proceeding to examine the girl’s eye. “Let me try to relieve you!”
As Virginia felt the touch of loving fingers on her eyelids, she felt powerless to restrain her emotion, and great tears welled up. Her weary head fell forward upon her friend’s shoulder, and she sobbed: “Oh, Constance, dear, the world to me is one black charnel house.”
The gentle nature of Constance leaped out in sympathy which, for the moment, smothered her surprise. She threw her arms around Virginia and kissed her on the temple.
That Virginia suffered was enough, she felt instinctively that such an outburst of grief was from a far deeper source than that produced by the mote in her eye.
Virginia always had confided in Constance. That desire to communicate, so natural in youth, was strong in the girl. In Hazel, she had been met with a sort of pity, till she ceased to touch upon girlish secrets with her altogether, but in Constance she found one who would not chide even folly, and so these two were, by the nature of things, very close friends.
“There, dear heart,” soothingly said Constance, “rest awhile, for I know the pain must be severe.”
Rutley was an involuntary witness to this bit of feminine sympathy, and, no doubt, recalled it to memory in the events that were to come. His immediate concern, however, expressed itself in a cold, matter-of-fact manner. “Oftentimes,” he said, “the protection supplied by nature to the human eye seems insufficient, and consequent suffering must be endured. I trust Miss Thorpe will soon find relief.”
“Oh! I am sure the pain is only temporary,” half rebelliously replied Virginia, drawing away from Constance, and rapidly recovering her self-possession, as she brushed the tears from her eyes. “There,” she said, “it is passing away now, and I can see quite distinctly already. Why, how like your lordship resembles a past acquaintance,” she remarked, as she eyed him critically.
“Indeed, if the acquaintance you mention was not consigned to the gallows, it might be no sin to resemble him,” responded Rutley, stroking his Vandyke beard.
“Oh! his offense was quite serious, poor fellow! Some shady bond transaction with an investment association, in which he, and one Jack Shore, were the officers. I have heard that the directors agreed not to prosecute them on condition that they left the city and never returned.”
“In England, were it not for the color of my hair, I should have been taken often for the Marquis of Revelstoke,” and to the girl’s dismay, he stiffened up and directed on her a most austere and frigid look, then deliberately fixed the monocle to his eye, and remarked, as his frame faintly quivered, as with a slight chill – “It’s deuced draughty, don’t-che-know!”
He then removed the monocle, and suddenly resumed his habitually suave manner. Picking up a binocle, which lay on the table, he turned to look toward Mt. Hood – “Sublime!” he exclaimed.
“It is very beautiful and white today,” remarked Constance.
“Indeed,” assured Rutley, “it seems close enough to touch with my outstretched hand.”
“My lord’s arm would need to be thirty miles long,” smiled Mrs. Thorpe, who was then ascending the steps.
“A long reach,” responded Rutley, lowering the glass.
“The illusion is due to our clear atmosphere,” replied Mrs. Thorpe.
“I presume so,” agreed Rutley.
“At times the air is phenomenally clear. One day this past Summer I fancied I could make out the ‘Mazamas,’ who were then ascending the mountain,” quietly remarked Virginia.
“Aw, indeed, very likely; quite so,” continued Rutley, handing the glass to Constance, and then turning to Virginia with an alluring smile, added: “And then, the ladies – are so bewitchingly entertaining.”
“Presumably your idea of American girls has suggested the art of flattery.”
“No, no!” he replied. “It’s no flattery, I assure you.”
Just then Hazel and Mr. Corway approached the group standing on the piazza.
Virginia saw them, and with an affected sigh, she turned to John Thorpe, who was standing at the head of the piazza steps, and who also was looking at the approaching couple, and taking him aside, said in a low voice: “John, has it occurred to you that Corway is a handsome man?”
“He
