The soul’s far deep at its coming hushes
The thirsting passions that in them live.”
Otho, mad with love for Floy, and Maybelle for Beresford, knew that something terrible indeed must happen if these two were to be prevented from marrying.
Nothing short of Floy’s death or dishonor would keep the proud young aristocrat from making her his worshipful bride.
Maybelle, in the madness of her jealous love, hated Floy with a terrible hate.
She felt that she had come very near to winning Beresford’s love just before he met Floy.
And she vainly imagined that with Floy removed from her path, she might yet succeed in her heart’s desire.
Love, ambition, and jealousy combined had transformed Maybelle from a merely selfish, domineering girl into a relentless fiend. She felt as if she would like to murder innocent Floy with her laughing blue eyes, and her saucy, winning smile so frank and ready. Why should this girl, socially her inferior, and with only a babyish kind of beauty, have won in one brief, fateful day the prize that Maybelle had schemed for long, weary months, and which she would have sold her soul to win?
When she thought of Floy’s possessing Beresford for her very own, of the love and caresses she craved being lavished on the little beauty, she felt as if her heart leaped into her throat and choked her. She grew lividly pale with emotion.
She could not speak for a moment after Floy’s little boast, and the young girl continued, lightly: