“You make me quite curious. I think unfortunate love affairs are so sad and romantic. Was yours unfortunate, Mr. Wylde?” asked Pansy, still leading him on.
“It was tragic,” he answered gloomily; and she was glad when she saw he was suffering some remorse for the ill that he had wrought. Her heart began to grow softer toward him.
“He is sorry for his sin. Perhaps he would undo it if he could,” whispered her heart.
Norman Wylde lifted his sad, dark eyes and looked at her gravely. Oh, how strong was the resemblance to his lost love, and how strangely his heart thrilled at the sound of her voice! No one but Pansy Laurens had ever made his heart beat faster by a voice of music.
“I wish you would tell me all about it,” she said persuasively.
CHAPTER XXV.
AN OLD STORY.
Pansy had quite forgotten why she came to the Capitol Square. She could think of nothing but Norman Wylde and the sorrow on his handsome face. She lingered beside him until he consented to tell her the story of his unhappy love affair.
“I was engaged to Juliette Ives, but I was not very much in love with her. I met, in the country, a beautiful young girl named Pansy Laurens,” he said. “The young lady was not in our set. She was poor, and worked at Arnell & Grey’s tobacco factory; but she was the fairest, sweetest, most charming little creature I ever met. We fell in love at first sight, and I broke my engagement with Juliette for her sake. But, of course, you think, as every one else did, Mrs. Falconer, that I acted badly.”
He stopped and looked searchingly into her pale face. Oh, how like it was to his lost love’s, only with a proud smile on it that made it a little different from Pansy’s, that had been so sweet and gentle.
“I am very much interested; please go on,” she murmured. And, sighing heavily, Norman Wylde continued: