He had always been gay and light-hearted until now, but an hour of profound bitterness came to him to-night alone in the odorous moonlit stillness. The words of Leonora's song seemed to echo in his brain:
"For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear."
"I wish that I could go back to my regiment to-morrow," he thought. "Why should I linger on here, and how will it all end, I wonder? Will De Vere marry Leonora? shall I marry Lady Adela? What will fate do with the tangled thread of our lives, I wonder?"
He went back to the house, and he found that Leonora was gone, and that De Vere had gone over to the fauteuil, and was talking to the earl's daughter. Several of the men had formed a coterie around Lady Lancaster, and were good-naturedly upbraiding her because she had declined to present them to the beautiful musician.
"I could not do it, really," said the dowager. "She is not in our set at all. She is a mere nobody, the dependent niece of my housekeeper."
"Well, but Lancaster and De Vere were quite hand-in-glove with her," objected one.
"A mere accidental acquaintance. She came over from America with them," said the dowager, carelessly.
In fact, she was inwardly raging with vexation. Her clever plan for annihilating Leonora had failed. The girl had appeared to much more advantage than she had expected—had created a sensation, in fact. The men were all in raptures, the women were all angry and jealous, and Leonora's modest withdrawal from the scene as soon as she arose from the piano was felt by all as a relief.
Lieutenant De Vere had gone with her as far as the door. He had held her hand a minute in saying good-night.