“Miss Stirling, pray remember that our brief engagement ended long ago, and that this advance on your part is in the worst possible taste.”
If she had been conscious, instead of lying like a dead girl on the ground amid the ruins of her happiness, she would have seen Jessie Stirling sink down and clasp Chester’s knees, and with burning tears beseech him to love her again because she could not endure life without him.
She would have heard these passionate prayers repulsed; she would have heard Chester Olyphant saying, coldly:
“Words are useless, Miss Stirling, for, after all, I never really loved you, and you entrapped me somehow into an engagement that my heart never sanctioned. The glamour of passion quickly faded, and when your own folly gave me an excuse to gain an honorable release from fetters that began to gall, I was glad to retreat with honor. I have to tell you things thus frankly, because it is the only way out of your efforts at a reconciliation that can never be effected, since my whole heart is given to another.”
All the while he was unconscious of Leola, lying there like a dead girl on the ground, and he continued, impatiently:
“Pray get up, Miss Stirling; it is embarrassing to have you kneel to me. Be seated, I beg you, and calm yourself. This is certainly a very unexpected rencontre. I did not know you were at Wheatlands. Has not Leola, then, told you she is my promised wife?”
Sinking, sullenly, to the arbor bench as he raised her to her feet, she hissed, furiously:
“The silly little rustic told me she was in love with a man named Ray Chester, but how was I to guess that her poor artist lover was the millionaire society man, Chester Olyphant, masquerading under a false name and guise, perhaps to deceive a pretty, ignorant country girl, with more beauty than brains?”
He recoiled in horror from her bold accusation, his handsome face went white, his blue eyes flashed lightning.
“How dare you?” he thundered, clenching his fist; then it fell helplessly to his side. “You are a woman; I cannot strike you. I can only reason and explain.”