“All this while I have been loving Jessie Lyndon dead better than Cora Ellyson living, and when I saw you that night on the steamer my heart went out to you passionately as if you had risen from the dead in answer to my yearning prayer. It would be wrong to wed Cora with my heart full of you! I will go to her and confess the truth, and ask her to release me so that I may lay my life at your feet!”
Oh, what a moment of triumph for Jessie Lyndon!
When she remembered that awful night at Mrs. Dalrymple’s it seemed too strange to be true that she had won from proud, scornful Cora the lover whom she worshiped, thus paying back scorn for scorn.
And she could not doubt he loved her now. It quivered in his voice, and flushed his cheek, thrilling her with a secret happiness too deep for words.
Her heart cried wildly:
“Oh, if he were but free, my handsome lover, I would confess my love and make him happy!”
But the thought of Cora came over her with an icy chill.
He had belonged to her first, and, after all her suffering, Jessie was too noble a rival to break that proud girl’s heart.
She turned her face from him to the shining stars so that he could not read the despairing love written on it, and answered, firmly though gently:
“I forbid you to tell her the truth, for I can never accept happiness based on the wreck of another devoted heart. You must marry Cora as you promised to do, and, perhaps, you will learn to love her again!”