For a few moments she remained with her hand to her head, breathing hard, her eyes dim.
'Come, Zita—what answer?'
She looked at him with glazed eyes. She was in pain and sorrow. She would in one moment see Mark,—Mark, whom she loved,—and see him with the knowledge that she never could be his. But the demand made of her to surrender was not so great as it might have been had Mark loved and respected her. He liked, or had once liked her. Now he loved another. He despised her for some reason she could not understand. He held by Kainie, to whom he was bound by promise, and to whom, after a short wavering of his affections, he had returned.
'Come, Zita, what say you to my offer?'
In a whisper, with sunk head, her chin in her bosom, and with folded hands—
'I accept.'
CHAPTER XXXII
A PARTHIAN SHOT