At the hour named, Dorothy stood ready, and a few minutes later Mr. Garner appeared in the corridor.
Taking Jessie's arm, he led her down to the carriage, seated her, helped in the little dark figure, and then proceeded carefully to tuck Jessie in with all the robes.
They were only ordinary attentions bestowed upon her companion, but they rankled deeply, like the thrust of a sharp sword, in the heart of the girl who sat there witnessing it all.
They talked upon indifferent subjects, but it seemed to Dorothy that every word held a double meaning.
Oh, how solicitous he was for her comfort! how he gathered the wraps about her, anxiously inquiring if she felt the cold air! how low and tender his words seemed to the girl sitting opposite them, and both seemed entirely oblivious to her presence.
The curtain was up when they reached their box, but all through the opera the little dark figure who shrank back behind the silken hangings saw nothing, heard nothing; she was watching so intently the old lover who was so near, and yet, alas! so far from her.
In the old days she had loved Jessie Staples, but now, as she saw her old friend and Jack Garner all in all to each other, she grew in a single hour to almost hate her for usurping her place in his heart.
True, there was not the same devotion that he had been wont to pay her; but then, Jack was older now and graver. How he had come by this sudden wealth puzzled her. Then, by degrees it all came back to her—how he used to say that some day there was a bare possibility of his being wealthy—-that he had some expectations from a distant relative. Surely those expectations must have been realized, or he could not be in the position which he was now enjoying. How strange that the Garners had lifted Jessie Staples out of the old life, and that she now was Jack's betrothed bride. And she wondered vaguely if he had forgotten the Dorothy he had loved so well.
Suddenly he turned toward her, and at that moment Jessie rose hastily to her feet.
"We will get home as quickly as possible," he said, hurriedly. "Miss Staples is indisposed."