She listened to the talk of Maynard’s cowardice without giving credence to it. She knew there must be some other cause for that abrupt departure; and she treated the slander with disdainful silence.
For all this, she could not help feeling something like anger toward him, mingled with her own chagrin.
Gone without speaking to her—without any response to that humiliating confession she had made to him before leaving the ball-room! On her knees to him, and not one word of acknowledgment!
Clearly he cared not for her.
The twilight had deepened down as she returned into the balcony, and took her stand there, with eyes bent upon the bay. Silent and alone, she saw the signal-light of the steamer moving like an ignis fatuus along the empurpled bosom of the water—at length suddenly disappearing behind the battlements of the Fort.
“He is gone?” she murmured to herself, heaving a deep sigh. “Perhaps never more to be met by me. Oh, I must try to forget him!”