She stood for some little time where he had left her. Such fiery passion and anger surging in her heart as almost drove her mad. Her face flushed crimson with it, her eyes flamed, she twisted her white hands until the gemmed rings made great dents in them. She hated him with such an intensity of hatred, that she would have laughed over his death. Her graceful figure shook with its heavy strain of anger—her lips parted with a low, smothered cry.
"I pray Heaven to curse him!" she cried, "with a terrible life and a terrible death; to send him a thousandfold the torture he has given to me! I—I wish I could kill him!"
In the might of her wrath she trembled as a leaf upon a tree. She raised her right hand to heaven.
"I swear I will never marry him," she said. "Let him threaten, punish, disgrace, degrade me as he will, I swear that I will never marry him. I will lose love, happiness, wealth, position, nay even life first; but I swear also that I will torture him and pay him for all he has made me suffer!"
She walked to and fro, never even seeing the brilliant blossoms and the glossy leaves, trampling the fragrant flowers she gathered underfoot, moaning with a low, piteous wail. It was too cruel—too hard. She had sinned—yes, she knew that—sinned greatly; but surely the punishment was too hard. Others sinned and prospered; why was she so heavily stricken? She was young when she sinned—careless, ignorant, heedless; now she was to lose all for it. She had beauty that made all men her slaves; she had wealth such as she had never dreamed of; she had one of the highest positions in the land; she had, above all, the love of Earle, the love and fealty of Earle. Now, in punishment for this one sin, she must lose all. Would Heaven spare her?
Was it of any use in this her hour of dire need, praying? Why, in all her life—her brief, brilliant life—she had never prayed; was it of any use her beginning now? She did not even remember the simple words of the little prayer she had been used to say with Mattie at her mother's knee—it was all forgotten. She knew there was a God in heaven, although she had always laughed and mocked at religion, deeming it only fit for tiresome children and old women; surely there was more in it than this.
She knelt down and stretched out her hands with a yearning look, as though some voice in the skies would surely speak to her; then she could not remember how it happened, the fragrance of the flowers seemed to grow too strong for her, the glass roof, the green, climbing plants, the brilliant blossoms, seemed to fall on her and crush her. With a long, low cry she fell with her face on the ground, a streaming mass of radiant white and golden hair.
It was there, that, going in an hour afterward, Earle found her, and raising her from the floor, thought at first that she was dead.
Great was the distress, great the consternation; servants came hurrying in, the doctor was sent for. The earl and the countess returning, were driven half frantic by the sight of that white face and silent figure. It hardly reassured them to hear that it was only a fainting fit.
"Brought on by what?" asked the earl, in a fever of anxiety.