"You do love her?" persists she, playing with her misery, insisting on it. She lays her hand upon her heart as if to stay its beating. Is it going to burst its bonds? Oh, if it only might, and at this moment! To think that she—that girl—should take her place! And yet, had she not known? All through, had she not known? She had felt a superstitious fear about her, and now—"You do not speak?" says she. "Is it that you cannot? God knows I do not wonder! Well," slowly, "good-night! good-bye!"
She goes to the door.
"You cannot go like this," says Rylton, with some agitation. "Stay here to-night. I shall have time to catch the up-train, and I have business in town; and besides——"
"Do not lie!" says she. She stops and faces him; her eyes are aflame, and she throws out her right arm with a gesture that must be called magnificent. It fills him with a sort of admiration. "I want no hollow courtesies from you." She stoops, and gathering up her wraps, folds them around her. Then she turns to him again. "As all is dead between us." She stops short. "Oh no!"—laying her hand upon her heart.—"As all is dead in you——"
Whether her strength forsakes her here, or whether she refuses to say more, he never knows. She opens the door and goes into the hall, and, seeing a servant, beckons to him.
Rylton follows her, but, seeing him coming, she turns and waves him back. One last word she flings at him.
"Remember your reputation."
He can hear the bitterness of her laugh as she runs down the stone steps into the fly outside. She had evidently told the man to wait.