Again he was bound in her chains. Her feverish hands held his, her burning eyes drank up the dew in his own, her pathetic presence thrilled him with a sense of love stronger than any he had dreamed of or imagined. Neglect, cruelty, bitterness, scorn! What did the words mean? Like poisonous weeds they had grown fast and rank before his eyes, but in the burning face of this all-conquering love they had shrunk, withered and dead to the earth. Yes, it was the vile earth from which they had sprung, and it was in the radiant heavens that this great love was shining. Wanda's victory was nearly complete. The only thing lacking to make it so was that she should renounce it altogether. And this she did—not with conscious art but by that sure instinct of womanliness which teaches that a man won by other than indirect methods is not won at all. Then she said, pushing him gently aside, "I will go away now, and never see you again, because I am a burden to you. No," for he had put his hand upon her wrist, "you must not touch me, because—" the words choked her for a moment, and then they fell from her lips with a sound of fathomless despair—"it is as though you were my little child that I was forced to leave forever." Again she had reached the door, but this time it was his arm around her that brought her back, his protestations of undying affection that revived her drooping frame.
There was a light tap at the door, which opened to admit Lady Sarah
Maitland. "My maids will attend to this poor child," she said,
addressing Edward. "She will have a bath, and food, and a bed.
Meantime, I want you to help to entertain my guests."
"Really?" The young man frowned at the idea of rejoining that gay throng. He was in a state of mental exaltation—so far up in the clouds that the idea of attending a reception given by his brilliant hostess seemed by contrast spiritless and earthy.
"It would be a great kindness to let me off," he pleaded.
"It would be the greatest kindness to compel you to come," she insisted. There was a significance in the eye and tone of this thorough-bred woman of the world that were not without effect upon Edward, who at once accompanied her. His bright face, collected manner, and ready speech, lessened the impression made upon the company by the episode which had drawn general attention to him early in the evening. Not till after the guests had begun to retire did he again see Wanda. Running upstairs to get a wrap for the fair shoulders of a young lady, who preferred a moonlit seat on the lawn to the rather oppressive warmth within doors, he chanced into a little sitting-room in which Wanda, left alone for a moment, was resting with closed eyes in a great easy chair. Fresh from her bath, with her damp heavy hair lying along the folds of a loose white neglige, she looked almost too tired to smile. Edward advanced with beating heart, but stopped half-way, suddenly smitten by the sight of a pair of little bruised feet, carefully bandaged, resting upon a stool—the little feet that had travelled such a long hard road, that had been torn and wounded for his sake. A great wave of shame swept over him.
"I am not worthy to stand in your presence," he said penitently, kneeling at her side.
A low murmur of joy escaped the Indian Maiden's lips.
She drew his head down for a moment under the dusky curtain of her overhanging hair, and then her eyes closed again.
Edward rose and beheld in the open doorway Helene DeBerczy; her large gaze, darker than a thunder cloud, was illumined by a long lightning flash of merciless irony.