"An you wish it," replied the other, as he took the letter from him.
A curious instinct prompted Michael to blow out the flickering light, just as Rose Marie, having closed the door behind her father, turned back into the room. He went up to her, but she retreated a step or two at his approach, and of her own accord went to the window seat, there where a brief hour ago she had sat with him in perfect communion and perfect happiness.
The casement was still open, and the moon which had been so fitful throughout the evening poured her cold radiance straight on the dainty silhouette of the girl, just as she had done awhile ago, ere the gates of paradise were closed and the angels had ceased to sing their glad hosannas! Outside, the sighing of the reeds and the moaning of the wind in the young acacias made a sound as of innumerable feet of restless spirits stirring the dead leaves of an unforgettable past.
"That letter, milor," said Rose Marie, "will you give it me—since my father hath so commanded."
Without a word he handed the paper to her, and when he saw that she could not read it—for the room was dark and the rays of the moon not sufficiently bright—he took out his tinder-box and relighted the guttering candle. Then as the wind blew the feeble flame hither and thither he shielded it with his hand, and held the candle so that she might read and yet not move from that window seat.
She read the letter through to the end, and while she read he could see the top of her head bent down to the paper, and the wealth of those fair curls which he would never again be allowed to kiss.
When she had finished reading, she looked up and he threw the candle far away out through the window.
"Then you had lied to me," was all that she said; and she said it so calmly, so quietly, like the true snow maiden which she had once more become, now that he who alone had the power to turn the snow to living fire, was proved to be treacherous and false. Then she folded up the letter and slipped it under her kerchief.
Stately and tall as the water lilies on the pond which he had once described to her—she drew up her slender figure and held her little head erect. She did not look in his direction but rose slowly and turned to go out of the room.
"Rose Marie," he called out to her in an involuntary moan of agony.