“Leave me. Go now, and never come back.”
She threw herself down on the floor, crushing her fresh dress and knocking down another vase, which broke. She lay there and could not cry—could only moan, long shuddering moans of sorrow. Alone, alone—always now, and forever, and he never would know that she had loved him—loved him! If only she had written to him!
Launa was busy with her clothes, and people were giving her teaspoons.
Paul had gone to Germany. He would return in time for her wedding. Hugh Wainbridge and Lord Wainbridge, who liked his future niece very much, had her all to themselves. Lady Wainbridge sent her volumes of sermons and books on the disappointments of the marriage state.
“I suppose it is wretched,” said Launa; “but people seem to bear it fairly well after a time.”
“I could,” said her lover, “with you. Don’t believe all you read in my aunt’s books.”
“Thank you,” she replied gaily.
They were alone in the music-room. The piano had vases of flowers, and a strip—a beautiful deadening strip—of velvet upon it. Launa’s piano had hitherto been bare.
Matrimony and music—more often matrimony and discord. She did not play very much, only little things for Lord Wainbridge; Chopin and ghosts went together.