The slighted beauty looked very fair and handsome to-day. She had been the first bridesmaid, and her dress rivaled that of the bride itself for richness and elegance.
It was a creamy satin, heavily embroidered with pearl beads and draped with rich lace, caught up here and there with deep-hearted yellow roses. Her glossy black hair was adorned with the same flowers, and a necklace of sparkling topaz made a circlet of pale flame around her white throat. A dainty little basket of yellow roses had hung upon her arm, but she had thrown it down now and stood trampling the senseless flowers with fury in her eyes.
"My dear!" exclaimed the mother, in some trepidation.
"Don't 'my dear' me," Felise answered, furiously. "I am not in a mood to be cajoled."
She began to pace the floor impatiently, her rich dress rustling over the floor, her white hands busy tearing the roses from about her and throwing them down as if she hated the beautiful things whose crushed petals sent out a rich perfume as if in faint protest against her cruelty. There was a wild glare akin to that of madness in her dark eyes.
"'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned!'" she said, repeating the words of the great poet. "Oh, mother, how I hate Colonel Carlyle and his wife! I seem to live but for revenge."
"Felise, you frighten me with your looks and words," Mrs. Arnold said, a little anxiously. "You seem like one on the verge of madness."
"I am," she said, stopping in her hurried walk a moment, and laughing a low, blood-curdling laugh, "but never fear, mother, 'there is method in my madness!'"
"I wish you would give up this scheme of revenge," pursued the mother, anxiously. "I hate them as much as you do, I know, but then we have got rid of the girl, and the misery she feels as the wife of a man she cannot love is a very fair revenge upon her. Remember we have despoiled her of everything, Felise, and given her over to a life that will make her wretched. Is not that enough?"
"No, it is not!" exclaimed her daughter, in low, concentrated tones, full of deep passion. "But, mother, what has changed you so? You used to be as vindictive as a tigress—now you plead with me to forego my revenge."