"Come here, my dear girl. Mr. Stanton, this is quite a momentous day for us, and I can't resist the temptation to take you into our circle and our confidence," said the elder woman, graciously. "It is just settled that this sweet adopted child of ours is to leave us–and at short notice too. She and Mr. Wildred are going to be married."
CHAPTER IX
Too Late!
"Too late!" the words that Karine had just spoken echoed in my ears like a knell of doom.
For a few tremendous seconds that seemed endless I stood paralysed by Lady Tressidy's announcement, unable to speak. Then I turned and looked at Karine. Her eyes seemed to have been waiting for mine, and for an instant I held them with my gaze, until they fell, and veiled the answer mine had asked, with long shadowy lashes.
Never, I thought, as my thirsty eyes drank in the beauty that was not for me, could there have been another woman so wholly lovely, so altogether desirable. I could have fallen on my knees before her, to touch the hem of her dainty gown with my lips, and cry out my love and longing for her. But instead I was called upon to say something civil, and therefore hypocritical, to the newly-engaged pair, and then, as soon as decency would permit my escape, to go out from her presence for ever, and face the black loneliness of my darkened life.
Only a few days had passed since first I had seen the beauty of her face, but already she dominated my every thought, and I knew that there was no hope of surcease from the aching pain of having lost her.
Had I been obliged to stand by and see her give herself to any other man than Carson Wildred, it seemed to me that the blow would have been more bearable. But with my almost unreasoning aversion for and distrust of him, the thought of a marriage between these two was like the sacrifice of fair virgins to the foul, blood-dripping jaws of the mythical Minotaur.
Slight as was our actual acquaintance, when measured by mere time, it appeared the maddest conceit on my part to believe for a moment that had I come earlier into her life I might have made a difference. But, mad as it was, I did so believe. Some voice within me, which would not be stilled or brook contradiction, cried aloud that I might have won her love, that she might have been mine, that only some devilish tangle of circumstances had circumvented the fate which originally had meant that we two should be all in all to one another.
It was perhaps the hardest task I had ever been forced to perform when after that ominous pause, which doubtless seemed far more prolonged to me than to the others, I held out my hand, as I was expected to do, taking Miss Cunningham's ice-cold fingers in mine, and wishing her happiness.