He had arrived with his precious burden close to the great steps of the piazza, when she struggled from his arms, and stood half turned about, her wistful brown eyes looking blankly at him.
It was then that Virginia appeared on the piazza, her face deathly white and her eyes still bearing traces of the terrifying ordeal she had so recently gone through with Rutley. On seeing Constance, down the steps she flew and folding the shawl about her stricken friend’s shoulders, clasped her arms about her and said chokingly: “Oh, why have you followed me, poor suffering heart?”
“I’m so cold,” was all Constance said, and she shook as with an ague.
“Oh, this is too appalling to be true! Speak, dear! Throw off that meaningless stare, and assume intellect’s rightful light,” beseeched Thorpe, and as he paused and gazed upon her sweet pensive face, awaiting recognition, great tears welled up in his eyes and silently rolled down his cheeks. Again he spoke to her: “Constance, do you not know me?” and then he turned his head away with an indescribable sickness at heart.
“Yes! Oh, yes! I know you! You want ransom money for my Dorothy. Very well, you shall have it!” and she thrust her hand into her corsage, and took therefrom some scraps of paper, a few of them falling on the grass. “There are ten thousand”—and she handed the papers to him, in a manner so gentle yet so full of unaffected artfulness, that he took them, while his heart seemed to still its beat and sink leaden and numb with the torture of his own accusing conscience.
“You shall have more,” she continued with plaintive assurance, “all I can get.” Then her eyes fell on the scraps of paper on the grass. She picked them up and pushed them with the others into his hand. “There are more thousands. Take it all for my Dorothy—my darling! Now give me the paddles, the paddles! Where are the paddles? Hasten, save Dorothy!”
There were no dry eyes in the little gathering of friends—all friends now—who heard her, and even Sam, who had halted on his way to the officers, was forced to turn aside and wipe his eyes and remark in an unsteady voice:
“I don’t know what makes my eyes water so.”
“God help me!” exclaimed Virginia. “Henceforth my life is consecrated to watch over and care for her.”
“I am equally guilty,” solemnly continued Mr. Thorpe. “I should not have acted with such anger. This is the blackening left by jealousy’s burning passion, the essence of which will cling to my soul long after my heart becomes insensible clay.”