“Oh, madame, I did not. Oh, my heart!”
The girl flung herself back on the pillows in an agony of grieving that strangled words on her lips, and it was hours later when she asked plaintively:
“Where have they taken him?”
Madame answered soothingly:
“Two lady friends of his were in the park when he was killed—Mrs. Dalrymple and Miss Ellyson of Fifth Avenue—and they had him conveyed to their home.”
Jessie instantly remembered the ladies she had seen in the victoria, especially the dark, brilliant beauty who had frowned at her so blackly.
She gasped faintly:
“Oh, I must see him once more before he is hidden from me forever in the cold, dark grave!”
“Impossible!” cried madame sternly, and though the half-distraught girl knelt to her in an agony of entreaty, she still refused her prayer. Indeed, she could do no less, seeing what a falsehood she had told.
Then Jessie grew angry and desperate.