With a terrible effort she turned her eyes from the villain's exultant face, and they rested by chance on Beatrix, where she stood leaning on her husband's arm. But whose was that other form beside Beatrix—that tall and stately presence? She gave a great gasp of blended emotion—St. Leon Le Roy!
[CHAPTER LXII.]
St. Leon Le Roy—what had brought him here at this moment of all others? What strange trick did fate mean to play her in thus surrounding her all in a moment, as it were, with these people who had had so malign an influence upon her past? Her heart beat with deadly fear. One white, ringed hand furtively sought her uncle's arm and clung to it as if to save herself from falling to the floor. Through the wild rhythm of the dance music, through the measured echo of the flying feet of the waltzers, she instinctively felt him pausing before her—she heard Mrs. Wentworth's voice, saying, with a strange, sweet ring in it:
"Mr. Le Roy, this is my dear friend, Mrs. Lynn."
Laurel could not speak for a moment. A deadly fear possessed her. She heard a clear, calm, self-possessed voice saying, kindly:
"Mrs. Lynn and I have met before. We are neighbors at our homes on the Hudson."
She did not look up, but she saw his strong, shapely white hand held out to her, and as she laid her own within it, his gentle pressure seemed to say dumbly:
"Do not be afraid, dear. They shall not surprise me into betraying your strange secret."
Laurel could not speak for a moment. Happily, Beatrix broke the silence by exclaiming, in a voice from which she could not keep the ring of disappointment.