If Stella could have known it, she was justly avenged already. Not even the anguish she had endured surpassed that of the proud beauty who had helped to rob her, and who had given her own heart to the man who had none to give her in return.
[CHAPTER XXXIX.]
"It certainly must have been made a hundred years after the rest of the world," said Mr. Etheridge. "Where on earth did you hear of it, Jasper?"
They were standing, the painter, Jasper, and Stella, on the little stretch of beach that fronted the tiny village of Carlyon, with its cluster of rough-stone cottages and weather-beaten church, the whole nestling under the shadow of the Cornish cliffs that kept the east winds at bay and offered a stern face to the wild seas which so often roared and raged at its base.
Jasper smiled.
"I can't exactly say, sir," he answered. "I met with it by chance, and it seemed to me just the place for our young invalid. You like it, Stella, I hope?" and he turned to Stella with a softened smile.
Stella was leaning on the old man's arm, looking out to sea, with a far-away expression in her dark eyes.
"Yes," she said, quietly; "I like it."
"Stella likes any place that is far from the madding crowd," remarked Mr. Etheridge, gazing at her affectionately. "You don't appear to have got back your roses yet, my child, however."