At length her guests became politely impatient.
"We are all attention," cried a voice.
She did not hear it; but others set in with laughing clamor; and at length she looked up, as if wondering what all the noise was about. Her eyes fell upon Leicester. She saw the smile of which he was probably unconscious, and the present flashed back to her brain.
"He hopes to crush me with these memories," she thought with lightning intuition.
The life came back to her eyes, the strength to her limbs, and without hesitation or pause, her voice broke forth. As she went on, the fire of a wounded nature flashed over her face. Her voice swelled out rich and passionately. Her woman's heart seemed beating in every word.
Take back the tress! the broken chain,
Its fragile folds have linked around us,
May never re-unite again!
And every gentle tie that bound us,
The madness of a single hour—