“He did not know me. I could have lived on a crust with Cecil,” sobbed Violet, then plaintively: “Oh, Amber, you have seen him?”
“Violet, you will have a relapse if I tell you any more.”
“I will risk it. Only answer this, dear Amber: You have seen my darling?”
Amber’s crimson lips curved in the silvery moonlight with a slow and cruel smile.
“I have seen him every evening since you were sick. He sent me notes begging me to meet him down by the river. At first it was for news of you; then he changed. Twice he forgot to ask for you, and he seemed to go back to the dear old days before you came, when he loved me so dearly and entirely. Oh, Violet, you won’t mind hearing this now, for you will soon be married to another, and then I know Cecil Grant will come back to me cured of his fleeting fancy for you! But, Violet, why do you laugh so wildly? Heavens! she is raving again!”
It was true. Violet was sitting upright in bed, her hair a cascade of tumbled gold about her shoulders, her cheeks crimson, her lovely eyes bright with fever. From her poor, parched lips poured incoherent babblings, mixed with sad plaints of her lover’s falsity.
Amber gazed at her victim a moment with gloating eyes and stole softly away to her own room, whispering to her guilty heart.
“She has taken a relapse, and the doctor said she would die if she did. Well, what do I care? It would be a lucky thing for me. I would be my grandfather’s sole heiress then, and I could win Cecil by the force of my unbending will. Grandpapa could never frighten me to death as he did Violet! I have a will as stubborn as his own, and I would cajole him into consent some way.”
Mrs. Shirley was lying down to rest for a short time, and Amber knew that the raving girl would be all alone. A thought came to her that perhaps in her delirium she might dash herself out of the open window down to instant death.
But she did not go back to the sick-room. She sat down to refresh herself with some white grapes the maid had brought to her room. She was consumed with curiosity over the man that Judge Camden had chosen for Violet’s husband.