That night, after the gay dances were done, when the house was stilled, Elaine Willoughby sat before her fire, while Justine laid away the regal robes.
There was the glitter of diamonds and the shimmer of pearls everywhere. With her hands clasped, the lonely mistress of Lakemere gazed into the dancing flames.
“I must crush him—to leave the past buried—that I may yet find the path trodden by those little wandering feet.
“Ah, my God!” she moaned, “it is not revenge that I want. It is love—her love—I burn to know her mine alone. And the past shall be kept as a sealed book, for her dear sake. It must be so. It is the only way. For, Vreeland is brave and true!”
The handsome hypocrite was even then dreaming of a “double event,” a duplicated prize, one beyond his wildest hopes.
“By heaven! I’ll have both her and the fortune!” His busy, familiar devil “laughed by his side.”
BOOK II—With the Current.
CHAPTER VI.
IN THE “ELMLEAF” BACHELOR APARTMENTS.