Amber could not believe in the constancy of Cecil’s love for Violet now that he believed her false and fickle. She was wildly determined to push this love from his breast by the force of her own will.
She hurried over to Bonnycastle the next morning and succeeded in her design of intercepting Cecil on his way to town as he walked along the bank by the murmuring river that always seemed to whisper to him of Violet, his fair, lost love.
It was a chilly morning in November. The frost-blighted willows drooped forlornly over the stream, and the lonely path was strewn with dead leaves that rustled to the tread.
When Cecil saw Amber coming toward him, he reproached himself for the feeling of regret that arose in his heart at the meeting with the brilliant beauty whose eyes beamed so joyously at his approach. He knew, although he despised himself for the instinctive thought, that she had come out purposely to intercept him on the way to the office.
“Good-morning,” she cried, pausing before him, with a bewitching smile. “I am glad I met you. I have a letter from our naughty Violet.”
“Indeed!” and Cecil grew paler, and would have passed on, but she detained him.
“Yes, it came this morning. They have arrived in Chicago, and she is delighted with her magnificent new home. She says she will be a social queen by reason of her husband’s wealth, and declares she is glad she married him instead of you. I am ashamed of her, the fickle, heartless girl! She even twitted me on my old love for you, and suggested that perhaps now she had proved faithless, I might win you back to your old allegiance.”
Stung by Violet’s heartlessness, he cried, warmly:
“Ah, would that I had never wandered from that first allegiance, and wounded your true heart, dear Amber.”
“Cecil! oh, Cecil!” she cried, with a melting glance that encouraged him to add: