But how handsome and manly he had looked—not at all like the weak coward Madame Ray deemed him. She found herself dwelling with pleasure on his handsome face and form, his dark-blue eyes, and brown, clustering hair.
“Much after the style of Cinthia’s handsome father. I fancy he might have looked like that when he was a young man, before the gray came into his brown locks, and the anxious lines into his face,” she mused, thoughtfully; and her eyes grew grave, and her cheek pale with a sudden, startling thought that made her exclaim: “Good heavens! could it be?”
The line of thought thus started was most distressing, as evinced by the agitation of her face, and presently she muttered:
“There may be a mystery, after all. I will try to get at the bottom of it.”
Meanwhile, Cinthia, struggling with the heartache renewed by her encounter with her lost love, or her false love, as she preferred to call him, made a great effort to throw off the weight on her spirits and become herself again.
“One struggle more, and I am free
From pangs that rend my heart in twain.
One last farewell to love and thee,
Then back to busy, life again.
It suits me well to mingle now