"Oh! Lina, do not look at me so kindly—you would not if you knew!"
Touched by an impulse of pity, Jaquelina bent and kissed the white brow with its soft waves of golden hair.
"I know what you mean, dear," she said. "You have been angry with me because Ronald loved me. You could not help it, dear. I am sorry, but I am not angry. You cannot be very envious of me. His love has not brought me much happiness."
It was an anguished plaint from the young heart that had suffered for years in brave silence. Violet looked at her in wonder.
"Oh, Lina," she cried, "how have you borne your sorrow all these years?"
"Violet, I could not tell you," she answered. "Sometimes I wonder at myself when I look back through the long years and remember how hard it was to bear. I think it was only my art that kept my heart from breaking."
"Ah! I have had nothing to divert my mind," cried Violet. "I have spent my whole time thinking of Ronald Valchester—yes, and trying to win him! You need not look so pained, Lina. I loved him before you ever saw him, and it always seemed to me that I had the prior right to him."
She paused, then as Jaquelina made no reply she went on slowly:
"After you were lost to him so strangely, I set my whole heart on winning him. I think—nay, I am almost sure that I must have succeeded in time if only—ah, if only you had not come back, Lina!"
Lina clasped her white hands tightly as she looked at the speaker.