Ela had gone with her to bribe the gypsy, and since they had parted company at the door of the tent, Olive had not seen her at all. It now began to seem strange to her, and she had decided to look for her cousin.
Ela had walked away from the crowd and the lights, nursing a secret unhappiness, love and ambition waging a desperate war in her heart.
She had loved Vernon Ashley very dearly; but the ambition to make a grand match had caused her to throw him over in the most heartless fashion, ignoring his letters, and refusing him a single interview, though he prayed for it so humbly.
The discovery to-day of Ellsworth's engagement to Dainty discouraged her hopes of marrying him; but still there remained the hope of being made her aunt's heiress, so she steeled her heart and fought down her murdered love in its heaving grave, saying to herself, consolingly:
"It is painful at first, because I really loved him well; but I shall soon get over the worst, and forget."
She was turning toward the crowd and the lights again, when suddenly a dark form emerged from behind the tree, a pair of hands grasped her wrists in a steely grip, and a low, menacing voice hissed in her ear:
"Cruel, heartless girl, you shall stay and hear me at last!"