The hush and silence had fallen over the outer world beyond and about the great hotel, and something of its hush and mystery brooded too in the deserted corridors and vacated public rooms of the building itself. Perhaps one or two of its inmates—so strangely thrown together—would have given almost every earthly possession for the power to gaze unknown—unseen—into one of those locked chambers; a room where a woman sat alone, with all the light and laughter and mischief gone from her face, and the shadows of suffering and regret resting like somber memories in her veiled and sorrowful eyes.
This was not Lady Francis as the world knew her—as the men whom she bewitched and tormented and flirted with in so audacious a fashion knew her. No, this was a woman maddened by self-reproach and unavailing regrets, fired with jealous hatred of a rival, and filled to the heart’s core with the memories and the longings that one voice, one face, alone in all the world had power to awaken, and had awakened to-day.
She had thrown on a loose muslin wrapper, and the soft lace and pale tinted ribbons seemed to cling lovingly around the lissom figure, the snowy throat and arms. The long glass opposite reflected her as she raised her drooping head with its wreath of unbound hair, and the sorrowful eyes that met her own struck sharply on her senses as a surprise—so unlike they were to the eyes she was used to see. “Oh, what a fool I have been,” she cried, with an impatience and intolerance of herself that was the more maddening by reason of its vain remorse. “And yet I suppose I should do it again to-morrow under the same circumstances; yet, O Frank, Frank, how I loved you once—how you seemed to love me!”
She looked down again at the table by which she was seated. On it lay an open photograph case containing a photograph. The dark eyes smiled at her—the handsome, gay, young face looked radiant in its happy youth and supreme content with life.
Her own intent gaze seemed to drink in thirstily every line, every feature, well as she knew them all. “He doesn’t look happy—now,” she said, and a little sob broke from her.
Impatiently she closed the case, and began to pace up and down the room in a stormy, impetuous fashion—dashing the tears from her wet lashes, though they only thronged back fast and swift in very mockery of her efforts to deny their weakness.
“How could I expect it to be different? Isn’t it always the same—always, always?” she repeated passionately. “Love doesn’t last; it can’t. And there were so many temptations; and then the excitement of conquest, and the vanity of wishing to show him I could still charm others, though he seemed to think I had no right to try. But it was all so false, so—so foolish. If he had only trusted, if he had only spoken gently, kindly—as he used to speak! And then that hateful woman, that French serpent—fiend—adventuress. Heavens! how I hated her; how I hate her still. If I thought he cared, really cared—if I thought he had ever held her to his heart—kissed her as he used to kiss me—if—oh! I could kill her!”
She broke off abruptly, pressing her hand to her heart, while the blood rushed in a crimson torrent to her face. “Oh! he can’t!” she moaned, throwing herself face downward on the cushions of the couch. “And yet I believed it—once; and I’ve never even let any man’s lips touch my hand; never, with all my whims and follies and vagaries, allowed myself to forget that I am Frank’s wife. But he doesn’t care any longer. How could I expect it? And yet if he had only spoken one word to-day—one little word, I would have thrown myself at his feet and said, ‘O Frank, I love you—I’ve never ceased loving you. Oh! take me back and let us forget all this miserable mistake.’ Frank!” She raised her head and shook back the rich, soft hair impatiently, and stretched longing arms out to the empty silence. “Frank,” she whispered more loudly, “why don’t you come to me? Why don’t you feel I want you as—as surely—sometimes—you want me. Frank——”
She rose unsteadily, supporting herself by one hand that rested on the back of the couch.
Her face had grown strangely white, her eyes had a look of intensity that spoke of strained mental force. “If I dared go to him,” she said, still in that strange whisper. “I’ve never said I was wrong—or—or sorry, but I am, Frank—God knows I am. Don’t drive me desperate; I’m too unhappy and too reckless to be always patient. But if you swear you never loved any other woman, Frank, I—I will swear I never loved or thought of any man save you. Never, dear heart—never.”