Ernest Noel, having always admired beautiful Cora at a distance, was now brought into more intimate relations with her by the errand on which he had gone for Laurier, and the young girl, not averse to a little flirtation to relieve the tedium of waiting her lover’s recovery, smilingly encouraged his frank advances.
It became the customary thing to call every evening and report Laurier’s progress on the road to recovery to his fair betrothed.
No secret was made of these calls to Laurier, who each morning received an enthusiastic description of how Cora had looked and acted and the flippant messages she had sent her lover.
Believing that she was arousing Laurier’s jealousy, as she had often done before, and thus increasing the fervor of his love, she rested secure, though secretly burning with anxiety to see him again, and only deterred from a visit to him by the rooted determination to pay him out for his fault, as she called it, to herself.
Beautiful, vindictive, jealous, she was capable of savage fury when aroused, but in indulging her fierce resentment she was running a risk she little dreamed.
Laurier, getting an insight into the flirtation, did not feel the least disturbed, but was startled at himself when he detected a latent wish that she would transfer her affections to Noel.
CHAPTER XX.
WOULD THE OLD LOVE RETURN?
December snows lay deep upon the ground when Laurier left the hospital two weeks after the fateful accident that had postponed his wedding.
His first visit was to Cora.
Having punished him as she deemed sufficiently, she was passionately glad to see him again.