“Hard on poor Will, indeed!” he repeated, wrathfully. “How much you must care for him to champion him as you do.”
“Care for him! I? Oh, no; only as a friend; but that, of course, you know, Leonard, after—after what passed between you and me on my birthday.”
Her shy eyes drooped, and the sweet face flushed faintly as she recalled his loving words, his fond vows. Yet here he stood before her, pale with anger, his dark eyes flashing, the very picture of an angry man, and not at all like a lover—her own true lover, Leonard. Her eyes wore a look of wondering surprise. She said to herself that he had ceased to care for her; that he loved Hilda instead (perhaps, indeed, he had never cared for Violet), and then a wave of passionate anger surged over the girl’s heart, and made it bitter and sore.
“Well, if he regrets the past, and wishes to recall his vows, he must suit himself,” she exclaimed under her breath, her heart hot with a jealous anger. She rose slowly and turned away. “I must go back to the house,” she observed, though her heart sunk at the thought of possibly encountering Gilbert Warrington there.
She hesitated, and a keen pang of regret struck to her heart like a knife.
Could she leave Leonard thus? Could she bear it that he should be angry with her without a cause? She ventured to lay her hand upon his.
“Leonard!”
He turned, and his eyes rested upon her face, pale, sad, and troubled exceedingly. He pressed the little hand to his lips.
“Violet! Violet!” he cried, “why do you torture me so? Surely you are not deceitful, and——”
“Torture you!” she interrupted, in a clear, ringing voice. “Deceitful! And I used to think that you loved me!”