So they went on slowly and unconsciously, and the handsome man and beautiful girl turned around and faced them.
They saw the young face whiten with fear, heard the frightened moan break from the trembling lips, saw her reel dizzily, and fall like a stone at their feet—and they knew that this was Laurel Vane, that St. Leon Le Roy was her husband, and that her wretched falsehood had found her out!
[CHAPTER XXVIII.]
Mr. Le Roy, turning in the same moment with his wife, saw two faces that he recognized—Cyril Wentworth's that he had seen once in New York, and Clarice's, which he remembered perfectly well. Beatrix he did not know. He glanced at her carelessly, little thinking what an influence the pretty blonde had exerted over his life.
A pang of jealousy, keen, swift, and terrible as the lightning's flash tore through his heart as he beheld his worshiped bride waver and fall, like one dead, to the floor.
He believed that the mere sight of Cyril Wentworth's face had produced that terrible emotion that had stricken her down like a broken flower at their feet.
For an instant he stood motionless, almost petrified by his agitation, then he bent down over the beautiful face that only a moment ago had been lifted to his sparkling and glowing with love and happiness. It was pale and rigid now, and the jetty fringe of the lashes lay heavily on the white cheeks as if they would never lift again from the sweet dark eyes.
Quick as he was, light-footed Clarice was before him. She was kneeling down loosening the furs and laces about the throat of the unconscious girl with deft, easy fingers. She looked up at him with a strange glance.
"It is only a faint," she said, "but she may be some time in recovering. You had better go out and bring eau de Cologne."