“Your lover will be here soon. How happy you look, Lady Elaine!”
When she was gone the earl’s daughter wandered from room to room, from house to arbor, wherein she and her lover had spent so many blissful hours.
As the time sped away her heart pulsed painfully and dark circles began to form under her eyes.
The sun cast slanting shadows on the grass, then sank to rest in a cloud of fire. Still Sir Harold did not come.
A young moon mounted the purple sky, and my lady sought her chamber. The clocks tolled the hours until the servants closed the windows and doors, and there was no Sir Harold.
“He will come to-morrow,” Lady Elaine told herself; “my love will come to-morrow.”
But the morrow brought no relief to her tortured soul. Margaret Nugent came, with pale face and burning eyes.
“I gave Sir Harold your letter,” she said, “but he tore it to atoms and cast it into my face. He scoffed at you and your love. Oh, Lady Elaine, you have broken his heart! He has left Annesley Park forever!”
“Gone! Forever!”
The words struggled through the pale lips of the earl’s daughter.