"She did—perhaps. She loves me now so well, that on our wedding-day—wedding-day!—she allows a man to step in between us and claim her as his own!"
Maddened by the memory which her words had called up he would have risen, but she held him down with a gentle hand.
"A man! What man, Ley?"
"One called Jasper Adelstone, a lawyer; a man it would be gross flattery to call even a gentleman! Think of it, Lil. Picture it! I wait to receive my bride, and instead of it happening so, I am sent for to meet her at this man's chambers. There I am informed that all is over between us, and that she is the affianced wife of Mr. Jasper Adelstone."
"But the reason—the reason?"
"There is none!" he exclaimed, rising and pacing the room, "I am vouchsafed no reason. The bare facts are deemed sufficient for me. I am cast adrift, as something no longer necessary or needful, without word of reason or even of rhyme!" and he laughed.
She was silent for a moment, then a murmur broke from her lips.
"Poor girl!"
He stooped and looked down at her.
"Do not waste your pity, Lil," he said, with a grim smile. "With her own lips she declared that what she did she did of her own free will!"