“‘Why are you back so soon?’ I demanded.
“‘I met Miss Helen on the stairs,’ she answered, ‘and she told me Lord Dunforth was in the drawing-room, and she would take the note to him.’”
“I could not say anything, but I did not like it even then; I did not like Helen Capel to be the bearer of any message from me to my lover. I liked her far less since the ball than I had ever done before, for I believed she had tried to make all this trouble for me. I had refused to see her during my sickness, although she had called a number of times, and had also sent me beautiful flowers.
“I lay two hours, listening for my loved one’s tread on the stairs. I had not a doubt but that he would obey my message and come to me. But at last I heard gay voices in the hall, then his deep, rich tones gravely saying ‘good-morning’ to some one, after which came the sound of closing doors, and I knew he had gone.
“With a heart like lead, I bade the maid go down and ask Miss Capel if she had given Lord Dunforth my message.
“She came back, saying that Miss Capel said, ‘Certainly, she had given his lordship the message.’
“Then it came to me that I had made a condition in my note—I had said if he could forgive me, to come to me.
“He could not forgive me, therefore he would not come, and, without even a word of farewell, he had left me forever.
“I cannot tell all that I suffered, Brownie. I know I raved against the injustice of Heaven in permitting such sorrow to come upon me, and in shutting out the light of my life from me. I cursed Helen Capel, her brother, and the Count de Lussan for their part in the drama; but most of all, I cursed myself for having allowed myself to become their dupe.
“I insisted at once upon returning to my own home, where I was again prostrated, and for another long month lay sick and weak, and praying to die; and thus my wedding day passed. Oh, who can tell the blackness of despair which came over me as that day came and went. I was to have been a happy wife, proud and blessed in the love of a noble man. Instead, I was a heart-broken girl, wailing out my life in loneliness. A homeless beggar in the street was not more wretched than I.