“I shall not fail to be there. She has bidden me come to the sacrifice, honored me by writing the address with her own fair hand. She wishes it. I will come. I shall even send her a wedding gift. Will you come with me to select it to-morrow?”
“With pleasure.”
“Thank you.”
When he went away she wept for him in his proud despair. She was reading his heart by the light of her own.
“He loves her with the most constant love in the world, and she does not deserve it,” she thought. “As for her, love is all merged in pride, and pique, and despair. She is jealous of me. She would have him love no one else, though she will not take him herself. Will she learn to love her splendid husband at last, or find out too late that she has made a terrible mistake? Oh, how strange is a woman’s heart!”
The next morning she said to Eva:
“Doctor Ludington called last evening, and I am to go out with him this morning.”
Eva gave a strange little laugh.
“Reggie and I had a lovely time at the opera last night,” was her only answer.