"Friends!" and all of wounded pride and scorned love, and hopeless passion was in her voice as she repeated the word.
Ah! when will a man ever learn that he cannot offer a more cruel insult to a woman he has once professed to love, than to call her his "friend."
Percy felt great drops of perspiration starting out on his brow. He drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and with it a letter fluttered and fell at Dolores' feet.
She picked it up, and she might have returned it without a glance at the superscription had not Percy sprung forward with a guilty flush, crying hurriedly,
"Excuse my awkwardness; give me the letter, please?"
Then she glanced down upon it. It was addressed in a delicate feminine penmanship, and the date of the post-mark was not a week old.
A sudden suspicion fired her blood; her pansy eyes blazed black as sloes as she turned them on Percy's tell-tale face.
"So!" she said, slowly and mockingly; "there is a cause for all this excess of morality, mon ami, is there?"
"Give me the letter, please?" was his only response.
She took a step back, and looked at him with defiant eyes.