And Maurice watched her through the dim shadows of gathering twilight: he watched her as a fowler watches the bird which he has captured and never wholly tamed. Somehow he felt that her love for him was not quite what it had been until now: that she was no longer the same girlish, submissive creature on whose soft cheeks a word or look from him had the power to raise a flush of joy.
She was different now—in a curious, intangible way which he could not define.
And jealousy reared up its threatening head more insistently:—bitter jealousy which embraced de Marmont, Clyffurde, Fate and Circumstance—but Clyffurde above all—the stranger hitherto deemed of no account, but who now—wounded, abandoned, dying, perhaps—seemed a more formidable rival than Maurice awhile ago had deemed possible.
He cursed himself for that touch of sentiment—he called it cowardice—which the other night, after the ball, had prompted him to write to Crystal. But for that voluntary confession—he thought—she could never have despised him. And following up the train of his own thoughts, and realising that these had not been spoken aloud, he suddenly called out abruptly:
"Is it because of my letter, Crystal?"
She gave a start, and turned even paler than she had been before. Obviously she had been brought roughly back from the land of dreams.
"Your letter, Maurice?" she asked vaguely, "what do you mean?"
"I wrote you a letter the other night," he continued, speaking quickly and harshly, "after the ball. Did you receive it?"
"Yes."
"And read it?"