"Fair as ever," he muttered, so absorbed as to appear heedless of aught else. "Ah, Lady Juliana Ducie, what an impossible task it is to forget you."
He led her to a distant sofa, and seating her, bent over her in an attitude of devotion.
Margaret stood like a statue, and pale as marble, accepted her defeat.
She saw the flush of gratified pride, the entire credulity of Lady Juliana; she saw the half-pitying, half-contemptuous smile which the executors passed with each other. She saw the stealthy look of wicked exultation with which her enemy repaid her ruse, and with a quick failing of strength and fortitude, she burst into sudden tears, turned and glided from the room.
"He is armed at all points against surprise," she moaned, in terror; "he will win the game in spite of me. You wretch! how shall I escape your vengeance?"
When she returned to her guests, half an hour later, with a slight apology for her untimely illness, she found Colonel Brand and Lady Juliana improving the time by a desperate flirtation, eager and hopeful on her part, satiric and careless on his, as beseemed the character of St. Udo, when he met again the woman who had jilted him.
No one asked the cause of Margaret's illness, or seemed at all struck by it; all had their private belief on the subject, my lady being neither slow nor reluctant to assure herself that extreme jealousy at St. Udo's marked pleasure upon seeing herself, had driven the bride-elect from the room.
When the evening had passed, like a queer, grim dream to poor Margaret, and the executors bade adieu, their ward accompanied them to the room door, and clung to Dr. Gay's arm with a pitiful reluctance to let him go.
"I have failed," she whispered, sadly; "and he has the best of it. Don't be angry with me for bringing you here to-night on such a fruitless errand. I am unhappy enough without your anger."
"It is not anger, my dear girl; it is concern that we feel for you——"