A whole week had passed since that night in the tamarack walk, that night when he had seemed so tender and lover-like, the matchless deceiver! And he had hardly spoken half a dozen words to her. He was back at the footstool of his first sovereign, he was the most devoted of engaged men; Kate was queen of the hour, Rose was nowhere. It was trying, it was cruel, it was shameful. Rose cried and scolded in the seclusion of her maiden bower, and hated Mr. Stanford, or said she did; and could have seen her beautiful elder sister in her winding-sheet with all the pleasure in life.
So, this sunny afternoon, Rose was wandering listlessly hither and thither, thinking the ice would soon break upon the fish-pond if this weather lasted, and suicide would be the easiest thing in the world. She walked dismally round and round it, and wondered what Mr. Stanford would say, and how he would feel when some day, in the cold, sad twilight, they would carry her, white, and lifeless, and dripping before him, one more unfortunate gone to her death! She could see herself—robed in white, her face whiter than her dress, her pretty auburn curls all wet and streaming around her—carried into the desolate house. She could see Reginald Stanford recoil, turn deadly pale, his whole future happiness blasted at the sight. She pictured him in his horrible remorse giving up Kate, and becoming a wanderer and a broken-hearted man all the rest of his life. There was a dismal delight in these musings; and Rose went round and round the fish-pond, revelling, so to speak, in them.
As her watch pointed to three, one of the stable-helpers came round from the stables leading two horses. She knew them—one was Mr. Stanford's, the other Kate's. A moment later, and Mr. Stanford and Kate appeared on the front steps, "booted and spurred," and ready for their ride. The Englishman helped his lady into the saddle, adjusted her long skirt, and sprang lightly across his own steed. Rose would have given a good deal to be miles away; but the fish-pond must be passed, and she, the "maiden forlorn," must be seen. Kate gayly touched her plumed-hat; Kate's cavalier bent to his saddle-bow, and then they were gone out of sight among the budding trees.
"Heartless, cold-blooded flirt!" thought the second Miss Danton, apostrophizing the handsomest of his sex. "I hope his horse may run away with him and break his neck!"
But Rose did not mean this, and the ready tears were in her eyes the next instant with pity for herself.
"It's too bad of him—it's too bad to treat me so! He knows I love him, he made me think he loved me; and now to go and act like this. I'll never stay here and see him marry Kate! I'd rather die first! I will die or do something! I'll run away and become an actress or a nun—I don't care much which. They're both romantic, and they are what people always do in such cases—at least I have read a great many novels where they did!" mused Miss Danton, still making her circle round the fish-pond.
Grace, calling from one of the windows to a servant passing below, caused her to look towards the house, just in time to see something white flutter from an open bedroom window on the breeze. The bedroom regions ran all around the third story of Danton Hall—six in each range. Mr. Stanford's chamber was in the front of the house, and it was from Mr. Stanford's room the white object had fluttered. Rose watched it as it alighted on a little unmelted snowbank, and, hurrying over, picked it up. It was part of a letter—a sheet of note-paper torn in half, and both sides closely written. It was in Reginald Stanford's hand and without more ado (you will be shocked to hear it, though) Miss Rose deliberately commenced reading it. It began abruptly with part of an unfinished sentence.
—"That you call me a villain! Perhaps I shall not be a villain, after all. The angel with the auburn ringlets is as much an angel as ever; but, Lauderdale, upon my soul, I don't want to do anything wrong, if I can help it. If it is kismit, as the Turks say, my fate, what can I do? What will be, will be; if auburn ringlets and yellow-brown eyes are my destiny, what am I—the descendant of many Stanfords—that I should resist? Nevertheless, if destiny minds its own business and lets me alone, I'll come up to the mark like a man. Kate is glorious; I always knew it, but never so much as now. Something has happened recently—no matter what—that has elevated her higher than ever in my estimation. There is something grand about the girl—something too great and noble in that high-strung nature of hers, for such a reprobate as I! This is entre nous, though; if I tell you I am a reprobate, it is in confidence. I am a lucky fellow, am I not, to have two of earth's angels to choose from? And yet sometimes I wish I were not so lucky; I don't want to misbehave—I don't want to break anybody's heart; but still—"
It came to an end as abruptly as it had begun. Rose's cheeks were scarlet flame before she concluded. She understood it all. He was bound to her sister; he was trying to be true, but he loved her! Had he not owned it—might she not still hope? She clasped her hands in sudden, ecstatic rapture.
"He loves me best," she thought; "and the one he loves best will be the one he will choose."