“She’s not well,” said the farmer’s daughter, after she had left the reception-room.
“No, not very well. You see, my dear, she is so excitable, so remarkably impressionable, so delicately organised that it does not take much to upset her. Poor Aveline, she’s very sensitive.”
“I think she is, but there has been nothing to put her out—that I am aware of—nothing has occurred to-night.”
“Ah, dear me, no, nothing—positively nothing—except the heat and over-fatigue, but after a night’s rest she’ll be herself again.”
“I hope so, I’m sure,” murmured Patty, who did not, however, see that the excuses offered by the diplomatic Lady Marvlynn were sufficient to account for the distraught manner of Aveline. However, she did not venture to disagree with her ladyship, and so sat down to the supper-table with the best grace she could.
We have intimated that Lady Aveline returned to her own chamber. When she had reached this she closed the door, bolted it, threw herself in an easy chair, and burst into a passionate flood of tears.
“I never would have believed it,” she exclaimed. “The perfidious monster! I abhor and contemn him, and never wish to set eyes on him again.”
With all her affected indifference and love of position, she still had, deep down in the bottom of her heart, some latent love for the man who, in an earlier day, she had sworn to love, honour, and obey.
How unmindful she had been of this vow we have already seen; but, notwithstanding that she had cast him on one side and given him up for the new sphere of action which presented itself to her with so much witchery, she could not bear to see him whispering soft words in the ears of a rival—and such a rival!
The thought was a maddening one, and as it passed through her brain the tears fell thick and fast from her swollen eyelids.