He stood gazing at her for a moment—amazed, thunderstruck at the change. Then, seeing only her enchanting beauty, he took a step forward, threw himself at her feet, and broke forth passionately:
"Gipsy, I love you—I worship you. Have you been mocking me all this time?—or do you love me, too?"
"Rise, sir! I have neither been mocking you, nor do I love you! Rise! rise! Kneel not to me!"
"And I have been deceived? Oh, falsest of false ones! why did you learn me to love you?"
"Mr. Danvers, don't call me names. As to the learning you to love me, I never attempted such a thing in my life! I'd scorn to do it," she said, indignantly; but even while she spoke, the blood rushed in a fiery torrent to her face, and then back to her heart, for she thought of all the encouragement her merciless flirtation must have given him.
"You did, Gipsy, you know you did!" he vehemently exclaimed. "Every encouragement that could be given to a lover, you gave to me; and I—fool that I was—I believed you, never dreaming that I should find a flinty, hardened flirt in one whom I took to be a pure-hearted mountain maiden."
Had Gipsy felt herself innocent of the charge, how indignantly she would have denied it. But the consciousness of guilt sent the crimson once more to her brow, as she replied in a low, hurried tone:
"Mr. Danvers, I have done wrong! Forgive me! As heaven is my witness, I dreamed not that you cared for me. It was my mad, wild love of mischief brought all this about. Mr. Danvers, it is as yet a secret, but Mr. Rivers is my betrothed husband. Some fiend prompted me to make him jealous, and to accomplish that end I—I blush to say it—flirted with you; alas, never dreaming you thought anything of it. And now that I have acknowledged my fault, will you forgive me, and—be my friend?"
She extended her hand. He smiled bitterly, and passed her without touching it. Then leaving the house, he mounted his horse and galloped furiously away. Prophetic, indeed, were the words with which her song had ended—words that came pealing through the dim aisles of the forest after him, as he plunged frantically along:
"Oh, heart, awaken!—wrecked on lone shore,
Thou art forsaken!—dream, heart, no more!"