"No," says she again. Her heart seems to die within her. Oh, the sense of shame that overpowers her. A sudden wild, terrible hatred of Beauclerk takes her into possession. Why, why, had he not given her the choice of saying yes, instead of no, to that last searching question?
"You mean—that he——" He stops dead short as if not knowing how to proceed. Then, suddenly, his wrath breaks forth. "And for that scoundrel, that fellow without a heart, you have sacrificed the best of you—your own heart! For him, whose word is as light as his oath, you have flung behind you a love that would have surrounded you to your dying day. Good heavens! What are women made of? But——" He sobers himself at once, as if smitten by some sharp remembrance, and, pale with shame and remorse, looks at her. "Of course," says he, "it is only one heartbroken, as I am, who would have dared thus to address you. And it is plain to me now that there are reasons why he should not have spoken before this. For one thing, you were alone with him; for another, you are tired, exhausted. No doubt to-morrow he——"
"How dare you?" says she in a voice that startles him, a very low voice, but vibrating with outraged pride. "How dare you thus insult me? You seem to think—to think—that because—last night—he and I were kept from our home by the storm——" She pauses; that old, first odd sensation of choking now again oppresses her. She lays her hand upon the back of a chair near her, and presses heavily upon it. "You think I have disgraced myself," says she, the words coming in a little gasp from her parched lips. "That is why you speak of things being at an end between us. Oh——"
"You wrong me there," says the young man, who has grown ghastly. "Whatever I may have said, I——"
"You meant it!" says she. She draws herself up to the full height of her young, slender figure, and, turning abruptly, moves toward the door. As she reaches it, she looks back at him. "You are a coward!" she says, in a low, distinct tone alive with scorn. "A coward!"
CHAPTER XXVIII.
"I have seen the desire of mine eyes, The beginning of love, The season of kisses and sighs, And the end thereof."
Miss Kavanagh put in no appearance at dinner. "A chill," whispered Lady Baltimore to everybody, in her kindly, sympathetic way, caught during that miserable drive yesterday. She hoped it would be nothing, but thought it better to induce Joyce to remain quiet in her own room for the rest of the evening, safe from draughts and the dangers attendant on the baring of her neck and arms. She told her small story beautifully, but omitted to add that Joyce had refused to come downstairs, and that she had seemed so wretchedly low-spirited that at last her hostess had ceased to urge her.