There was a click of the gate, and she flung round from the wall, dry-eyed, dry-lipped, desperate, as her aunt hurriedly rose.
"It's him—Sir Walter, Leonie—are you going to accept him?"
"Of course," came the steady reply, and Leonie looked the elder woman straight in the eyes, which darted this, that, and every way. "Will you go upstairs, please."
* * * * * * * *
Just before dawn Leonie slid in through the window, and the water, trickling from the bathing dress which clung to the wonderful figure, formed little pools on the faded carpet.
"Nothing will ever make me clean," she whispered, "nothing—nothing—nothing. There is no ocean big or wide or deep enough for that, oh! God—my God!"
For five long minutes she stood absolutely still, looking straight and unseeingly at the mantelpiece.
Then as a rooster somewhere shrilly heralded the coming day she awoke to her surroundings and moved.
Like a beaten dog she crept to her bedroom, and stood staring at the reflection of her haggard face in the mirror. A bird suddenly burst into a song of welcome to the dawn which was dyeing the sky rose pink, and she crossed to the window-seat, dropped to her knees, and buried her lovely head in her outstretched arms, amid the ruins of her beautiful Castle of Dreams.