Was it a dream that she should sit there listening to those words from his lips—she had fancied him Sir Lancelot without stain, and herself Elaine? There was a sense of unreality about it; she would not have been surprised at any moment to awake and find herself in the pretty drawing-room at Marine Terrace—all this beautiful fairy tale a dream—only a dream. The musical voice ceased at last; and it was to her as though some charm had been broken.
"Do you like poetry, Miss Darrell?" inquired Sir Vane.
"Yes," she replied; "it seems to me part of myself. I cannot explain clearly what I mean, but when I hear such grand thoughts read, or when I read them for myself, it is to me as though they were my own."
"I understand," he responded—"indeed I believe that I should understand anything you said. I could almost fancy that I had lived before, and had known you in another life."
Then Lady St. Lawrence said something about Sea View, and they left fairy-land for a more commonplace sphere of existence.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
REDEEMED BY LOVE.
"If anything can redeem her, it will be love." So Miss Hastings had said of Pauline long months ago, when she had first seen her grand nature warped and soured by disappointment, shadowed by the fierce desire of revenge. Now she was to see the fulfillment of her words.