Bonnibel's eyes followed the jeweled finger and read the few lines with staring gaze, mutely conscious of the overpowering scent of the roses that Felise carried in her hand.
Ever afterward Bonnibel associated roses with the thought of death.
"Died on the 10th of April, at Rome, Italy, of malarial fever, Leslie Dane, in the 24th year of his age. Mr. Dane was an artist and a native of the United States of America. Requiescat in pace."
[CHAPTER XVI.]
Felise was prepared to see her rival fall fainting at her feet.
She expected nothing less from the shock to the girl's already overwrought feelings, and in anticipation she already gloated over the sight of her sufferings.
But she was mistaken. Bonnibel neither screamed nor fainted. She sat like one dazed for a moment, her blue eyes riveted to the paper, and her face growing white as death, while the two women who hated her watched her with looks of triumph.
The next instant, with a bound like that of a wounded fawn seeking some leafy covert in which to die, she sprang from her seat and rushed from the room, clenching the fatal paper in her hand.
They could hear her light feet flying along the hall and up the stairs to her own especial apartments.