Poor, foolish little Butterfly, flitting eagerly from flower to flower, drinking, unconsciously, deadly poison with honey, how cruelly different from the sweet dreams of the morning would be the realities of the evening!
While she ran gaily from the carriage at noon, full of sweet, innocent visions, the ironic interpretation of her pitiful fate was even then decided. For, flying from rash promises, flying from the distractions of her beauty, flying from the tardy entreaties of conscience—Sidney Sanderson and his mother had gone.
With every intervening mile they were outstripping her ruined love, were nearing the selfish goal of the mother's ambitions; nearing the desolate Gladys, who, bowed with grief, and ignorant of all, would take, at the entreaty of her dead mother's friend, the reluctant lover who could never make her happy.
Poor Gladys! Poor Mariposilla!
Even before I allowed myself to acknowledge the perfidy of the woman with whom I had been so intimately associated, I began to understand her, when, early in the morning, a groom from the hotel brought me a note, asking me to drive over at once, as they were to leave that day at noon for the East.
"Duty compels us to go," Mrs. Sanderson wrote, shamelessly.
The word "duty" aroused at once my suspicions. I felt with a creeping certainty that Gladys Carpenter was the woman's prey. I believed that some unexpected turn of fortune had revived Mrs. Sanderson's ambitions.
I was sure that she had at one time relinquished all hope of obtaining the heiress for her son; but I felt on my way to the hotel a sudden presentiment that, on account of some unlooked-for occurrence, she was going to New York to revive her abandoned schemes.
I felt an uncomfortable stiffness as I entered the once familiar sitting-room, now in a state of wild disorder.
Mrs. Sanderson was on her knees, packing the last trunk. Upon the floor were piles of clothing and innumerable trifles, which she had torn from the wall.