Diana shrugged her shoulders.
“Why should I care?” she retorted. “The havoc you speak of, is merely the selfish desire of men to possess what seems to them attractive—it goes no deeper!”
Then, noting Mrs. Beresford’s rather pained expression, she smiled. “I seem hard, don’t I? But I have had experience——”
“You? My dear, you are so young!” and her kindly chaperone took her hand and patted it soothingly. “When you are older you will think very differently! When you love someone——”
“When I love!”—and the beautiful eyes shone glorious as light-beams—“Ah, then! Why then—‘the sun will grow cold, and the leaves of the Judgment Book will most certainly be unrolled!’”
That night she came to a sudden resolve to put away all her formerly cherished ideas of revenging herself on Reginald Cleeve. Standing before her mirror she saw her own beauty transfigured into a yet finer delicacy when this determination became crystallized, as it were, in her consciousness.
“What is my positive mind?” she asked herself. “It is a pole of attraction, which has through the forces of air, fire and water learned to polarise atoms into beautiful forms. It organises itself; but it is also a centre which radiates power over a world of visible effects. So that if I choose I can vitalise or devitalise other forms. In this way I could inflict punishment on the traitor who spoiled my former life—but I live another life, now, in which he has no part. This being so, why should I descend to pulverise base clay with pure fire? He will meet his punishment now without any further effort of mine, beyond that which I demand of justice!”
She raised her hand appealingly, as though she were a priestess invoking a deity,—then, turning to her writing-table, she penned the following lines:
“To Reginald Cleeve.
“I am summoned unexpectedly to Paris on business,—and the chances are that I shall not see you again. All that I have told you is absolutely true, no matter how much you may disbelieve the story. I am the woman you once pretended to love, and whose life you spoiled,—and I am the woman whom you love now, or (to put it roughly) whom you desire, but whose life you can never spoil again. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’—and when you read this, it is probable I shall have gone away, which is a good thing for your peace, and—safety. You have a wife,—you are the ‘father of a family’—be content with the domestic happiness you have chosen, and fulfil the responsibilities you have accepted. Good-bye!—and think of me no more except as the ‘old’