[CHAPTER XXXVII.]
That day on which Ross Powell saw Laurel with her husband was the last of a series of happy walks and rides she had taken with St. Leon.
On that day that closed in so softly with the goldenest sunshine and tenderest twilight, that day seemed too fair for a day of fate, the suspended sword fell.
Yet she had never felt its shadow less than she did that day. She gave herself up blindly to her happiness, prizing it all the more because she knew it could not last. When she went to dress for her drive that evening she was most particular about her toilet. She chose a Parisian robe of cream and ruby colors, that was particularly becoming. Her bonnet was of creamy duchess lace, and its coronet of pale-pink rosebuds rested daintily against her rich golden waves of hair. The delicate lace at her throat was held by a gold bar set with pink coral and diamonds. Her boots and gloves were Parisian; her rose satin parasol shed a lovely glow over her pearl-fair complexion.
She was lovely as a dream, and she looked the dainty aristocrat from head to foot. St. Leon Le Roy said to himself with pardonable pride that he had won the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife.
She had never enjoyed a ride more than she did that afternoon. St. Leon had never been more tender and devoted. It was like heaven to look up into those dark, speaking eyes and read the love and adoration in his face. It filled her with a great passionate rapture and delight. She worshiped her noble husband with the blindest, most unreasoning passion woman's heart ever knew. In him she "lived and moved and had her being."
She had forgotten for a little while the brooding shadow of the sword that hung ever over her head. The sunshine was reflected in her eyes, smiles were on her lips, when suddenly like a thunderbolt falling from a clear sky, the sight of Ross Powell's face came before her—that evil face which she both hated and dreaded, remembering how he had sworn to be revenged on her for her just womanly scorn.
In that moment the sun went out of her sky, the light went out of her life. She stifled the wail of dismay that rose to her lips, and sunk back among the satin cushions pale as death, her breath coming and going in great panting gasps, a mute terror in the depths of her wide, dark eyes.
He recognized her. She read that in the wonder and amaze that flashed over his face. What would he do? she asked herself. She almost expected to see him spring to her horses' heads, and, checking them with a grasp of his infuriated hands, charge her then and there with her sin.
He did nothing of the sort. He only stood and stared like a man turned to stone while they whirled past him. St. Leon touched his hat courteously, and in a moment it was all over. They had turned a bend in the road, and the man standing there, ignobly covered with the dust of their carriage-wheels, was out of sight.