"He has forsaken me!" she cried. "Oh, my God! he has forsaken me, and I cannot die!"
No one cares to stand by the wheel or the rack while some poor body is tortured to death; who can stand by while a human heart is breaking with the extremity of anguish? When such a grief comes to any one as to Leone, one stands by in silence; it is as though a funeral is passing, and one is breathless from respect to the dead.
The best part of her died as she knelt there; the blue of the sky, the gold of the shining sun, the song of the birds, the sweet smell of flowers were never the same to her again. Almost all that was good and noble, brave and bright, died as she knelt there. When that letter reached her, she was, if anything, better than the generality of women. She had noble instincts, grand ideas, great generosity, and self-sacrifice; it was as though a flame of fire came to her, and burned away every idea save one, and that was revenge.
"He loved me," she cried; "he loved me truly and well; but he was weak of purpose and my enemy has taken him from me."
Hours passed—all the August sunlight died; the reapers went home, the cries of the sailors were stilled, the birds were silent and still. She sat there trying to realize that for her that letter had blotted the sun from the heavens and the light from her life; trying to understand that her brave, handsome, gallant young love was false to her, that he was going to marry another while she lived.
It was too horrible. She was his wife before God. They had only been parted for a short time by a legal quibble. How could he marry any one else?
She would not believe it. It was a falsehood that the proud mother had invented to part her from him. She would not believe it unless she heard it from others. She knew Mr. Sewell's private address; he would know if it were true; she would go and ask him.
Mr. Sewell was accustomed to tragedies, but even he felt in some degree daunted when that young girl with her colorless face and flashing eyes stood before him. She held out a letter.
"Will you read this?" she said, abruptly. "I received it to-day from Lucia, Countess of Lanswell, and I refuse to believe it."
He took the letter from her hands and read it, then looked at the still white face before him.