A sense of ingratitude, of remorse, of falsehood to gran’ther’s revered memory pierced her tender heart like a thorn.
Oh, he was looking down on her from heaven; could he know that she had been about to wed his enemy, at whose door, whether willfully or in self-defense, lay her cousin’s blood?
The tortured lover searched her face with eager, haggard eyes for some sign of relenting.
“Eva, Eva!” he murmured imploringly, but he would never forget the reproach, the despair, the anger of the beautiful upturned face, or the bitterness of the voice in which she answered:
“Oh, I know you now, Doctor Ludington, and I will never forgive you!”
Then her senses reeled with agony, her white hands slipped from his arm, and she sank like one dead at his feet.
No one who saw the piteous sight ever forgot how like a dead girl she looked, the beautiful little bride, lying prone on the floor in her filmy white robes, and the fragrant garlands crushed in her golden locks even as her heart was crushed with the weight of despair.
Doctor St. Clair would have felt himself well avenged for her scorn if he had witnessed that scene, but he had absented himself from the wedding, contenting himself that he had set in motion the adverse influences to wreck the budding happiness of the lovers.
The women all flung themselves down by unconscious Eva, and the officers hurried Doctor Ludington away, scarcely giving him time for a word with the few men friends who gave him the hand of sympathy.
He attempted no denial of his true identity. What was the use?