"O, being of beauty and bliss! seen and known
In the depths of my heart, and possessed there alone,
My days know thee not, and my lips name thee never,
Thy place in my poor life is vacant forever,
We have met, we have parted, no more is recorded
In my annals on earth."
The pretty lines have a more attentive listener than Bonnibel. Her husband has come up softly and unnoticed. He sees the graceful head graciously inclined, hears the lines that Byron Penn has, unconsciously to himself, made the vehicle for expressing his own sentiments, and his heart quakes with fury. He strides before them, white and stern.
"Mrs. Carlyle," he says, in low, stern accents, "will you come with me?"
The young wife lifts her drooping head with a start and sees him standing before her, wan, white and haggard, quite a different man from the enraptured lover who had kissed and praised her but a little while ago.
"I—oh, dear me—has anything happened, Colonel Carlyle? Are you ill?" she falters, in her innocent unconsciousness.
"Will you come with me?" he repeats, grinding his teeth in a fury.
"Certainly," she says, thinking that something dreadful must have happened surely, and simply saying, "You will excuse me, Mr. Penn," she bows and turns away on her husband's arm.
The handsome young fellow looks after them blankly.
"Upon my word," he exclaims, "what a furious, uncalled-for outbreak of jealousy! So that's what it is to be an old man's darling, is it? Truly an enviable position for such a peerless angel."
He throws himself down on the beach, to the detriment of his immaculate evening costume, and resigns himself to some rather melancholy musings.