"I bear you no illwill; you mistake me," says Mona, quietly: "I am only sorry for Nicholas, because I do love him."
"Do you?" says her companion, staring at her, and drawing his breath a little hard. "Then, even if he should lose to me lands, title, nay, all he possesses, I should still count him a richer man than I am."
"Oh, poor Nicholas!" says Mona sadly, "and poor little Doatie!"
"You speak as if my victory was a foregone conclusion," says Rodney. "How can you tell? He may yet gain the day, and I may be the outcast."
"I hope with all my heart you will," says Mona.
"Thank you," replies he stiffly; "yet, after all, I think I should bet upon my own chance."
"I am afraid you are right," says Mona. "Oh, why did you come over at all?"
"I am very glad I did," replies he, doggedly. "At least I have seen you. They cannot take that from me. I shall always be able to call the remembrance of your face my own."
Mona hardly hears him. She is thinking of Nicholas's face as it was half an hour ago when he had leaned against the deserted doorway and looked at pretty Dorothy.
Yet pretty Dorothy at her very best moments had never looked, nor ever could look, as lovely as Mona appears now, as she stands with her hands loosely clasped before her, and the divine light of pity in her eyes, that are shining softly like twin stars.