“I cannot comprehend you at all, Odalite. My heart aches for your evident suffering; but I cannot comprehend it. I almost fear that you are not quite sane! If you really please yourself in marrying Anglesea—as you insist that you do—why should you be so miserable over it all?”
“Oh, Le! as I told you before, it is because—because I feel that I am acting so basely by you!—oh, my dear! the thought almost maddens me!” she sobbed.
“And is it indeed for me that the gentle heart suffers so much?” questioned Le, utterly subdued by her sorrow and humility. “Do not cry, Odalite. I was cruel, and brutal, and most unmanly to blame you so much a while ago. I am sorry and ashamed of having done so, Odalite. I have no excuse to offer, unless it is that the suddenness and the bitterness of my disappointment threw me off my balance. Forgive me, Odalite. And do not spend another thought or shed another tear over me. Poor, little, tender Odalite! Do not mind me, little one! I—I—I shall get over this when I feel sure that you are happy. Do not grieve so! I shall never blame you any more, dear! I mourn that I ever could have been such a wretch as to blame you, for you could not help what has happened. I was away at the antipodes—had been there for years. He was in the house with you for three months. And—and—I have noticed—even I—what a fascination some of these handsome, brilliant soldiers exercise over young girls! You were fascinated, and your affections were won before you knew it. You did not mean to be drawn away from me any more than the boat means to be sucked into the whirlpool! You could not avert your fate any more than the boat could. I do not condemn you, Odalite. And I shall always—always love—no! I must not love another man’s bride, even though he has stolen her from me; but I will always care for you as for a dear and only sister. There! there! do not cry any more. It is all for the best! All for the best!” he concluded, in a broken voice, that all his effort failed to steady.
“Le! oh, Le! I am so miserable—so miserable! Oh, Le!” she cried, looking wildly up into his eyes and then staring fixedly down upon the sea at their feet—“oh, Le! I wonder would the merciful Lord forgive me if—if——” She paused and pointed downward.
Leonidas shuddered, but controlled himself. He now believed the girl to be laboring under a temporary fit of insanity. He took her hand, raised her up, and drawing her arm within his own, said, gently:
“Come, dear, let me take you home to your mother.”
She silently assented, and he led her up the hill, through the wood to the lawn gate, and across the lawn to the house.
They had not spoken a word since leaving the shore.
Le took her into the house, and into the sitting room usually occupied by Mrs. Force.
That lady sat, as was her custom, in her low sewing chair beside her worktable in the angle of the fireplace and the side window.