It was a close, sultry day in early springtime, and Iris found great difficulty in breathing, but she never once raised the thick brown veil that concealed her face, having a constant horror of meeting Charles Broughton, or some of the sunny-day friends who might recognize in this pale little working girl the happy Iris of other days.
By walking slowly she reached the bank at last, but was unable to get her check cashed immediately, as there chanced to be quite a number of people to be served before her.
One gentleman, noting the weary attitude in which she stood, awaiting her turn, placed a chair for her behind a large, fluted column near the paying teller’s window, where she might sit comfortably and partly concealed from the throng of people around her.
While Iris was seated in this place, two gentlemen, leaning against the column behind which she was ensconced, and totally ignorant of her proximity, were conversing in low, guarded tones, every word uttered being distinctly audible to Iris.
She was about to cough, or make some sound that would warn the gentlemen of her presence, when some words spoken by one of them caused her to pause.
She had recognized the voice of Gerald Dare; and Dare had mentioned a name the very sound of which sent the blood tingling through her veins like wildfire.
“I am greatly surprised at the information you have just imparted to me,” Gerald’s companion said, in answer to something the former had been telling him; and Gerald hastily resumed: “But the information is perfectly correct, I assure you. I was somewhat surprised myself, on first hearing the news, although I don’t know why St. John should not marry old Hilton’s heiress—the black-browed Isabel is eminently more suited to him than that pretty little Iris could possibly have been. Sad affair—that of little Iris, was it not?”
“I never heard the truth of the girl’s story, Dare, beyond some vague rumors that she had left Mr. Hilton’s home, and that she was not his own daughter. I never had the pleasure of meeting Miss Iris but once, and then I thought her a charming little lady. What was the trouble, anyhow?”
Leaning slightly forward in her chair, with a face that was like a mask of marble behind the thick folds of her veil, Iris listened for Gerald Dare’s answer, her heart throbbing so wildly that she half feared its loud pulsations would betray her.
She could hear the long sigh with which Gerald Dare prefaced his answer to his friend’s question, and then every word he uttered pierced her heart, and imprinted itself in characters of fire on her brain.