And teach the unforgetful to forget?”
To her own heart the unhappy girl was saying:
“Oh, why did I not die when I found that he was false, and my dream of love over? Why linger on when the charm is gone from life, and I must live on, shamed, humiliated, by the thought that Jessie Stirling’s proud, rich lover stooped from the height where he should dwell to pluck a wayside flower, then trample it beneath his feet? Oh, it is torture to think he held me so lightly!”
CHAPTER XIII.
IN THE SPIDER’S WEB.
She wondered that she did not die of her shame and despair, so keen was her pain and humiliation, but the day wore to sunset and she was still alive, although the face of the whole world had changed to her in twenty-four hours, so that the blue of the sky and the gold of the sun no longer seemed fair, and the birdsongs in the trees outside had changed to notes of sadness that fell coldly on her heart.
There came to her a sharp memory of the little song she had once loved, the one that had lingered on her lips the day she rode so blithely away on Rex to meet her fate in the beautiful dark blue eyes that had been so false and fair:
“Honey-flowers to the honey-comb,
And the honey-bees from home.
“A honey-comb and a honey-flower