LEONIDAS AND ODALITE AGAIN
Leonidas arose on the morning of Christmas Eve with one thought predominant in his mind: He should see Odalite—see her for the first time since that eventful day when her marriage with Angus Anglesea was broken at the altar.
How would she appear? How would she receive him? Would she consider his friendly and most delicate advance an intrusion?
He could not answer this question to himself.
Was she really reconciled to her fate? Or was she only, from a sense of honor and of duty, repressing her emotions?
He could not judge.
Her mother had told him that she was better in health and brighter in spirits than she had been for many weeks.
Was this real or assumed on her part?
He did not know; but he felt sure that he should discover the truth when he should see her.
Now that the villain who had come between them was entirely out of the way—forever and forever out of the way—there need be no reserve, no false shows, between hearts which had never ceased to trust each other, though hers might have ceased to love.