Of my bitter heart, and like a miser keep—
Since none in what I feel take thought or pleasure—
To my own soul its self-consuming treasure.
Shelley.
And thus Leda, Baroness Von Bruyin, had told her heart’s history to Tudor Hereward’s young wife.
No words can describe its effect on Lilith.
She sat in the “gloaming,” silent and motionless, her still, white face invisible to the lady, who, after finishing her story, fell into thought, seeming to brood over the past.
This, then—mused Lilith—this peerless, regal beauty was the Miss Von Kirschberg, the woman whom Tudor Hereward had passionately loved, and by whom he had been cast off, only on the evening before he had married her—Lilith—to please his dying father, and to be revenged upon his false love! Oh! the bitter wrong! the bitter, bitter dishonor of the wrong!
Lilith pressed her hands upon her white face, in an anguish too deep for tears.
Madame Von Bruyin saw nothing of that in the gloaming. Presently she spoke again: