‘Does a woman ever really make up her mind beforehand?—is she ever quite sure what her answer will be till the crucial moment has come?’
‘Thank goodness, my mind is generally made up about most things; but then, I’ve never been in love, and hope to goodness I never shall be. Still, with so much of it about, there’s no knowing. Like many other things, it may be catching.—But now, I must run off, or those good people will have gobbled up all the soup.’ At the door she turned. ‘Mora, I will never forgive you if the answer is anything but Yes—yes—yes!’
‘There goes as true-hearted a friend as any woman need wish to have,’ said Mora. She sighed, and rose and crossed to the window. ‘If I could but open my heart to her!—if I might but tell her everything! But not even to her dare I do that. And yet he must know—he must be told! What will he say—what will he do when he has read my letter? Ah me! I tremble—I am afraid.’
On the side-table stood an ebony and ivory writing-desk. This she now proceeded to open with a tiny key which hung from her châtelaine. From it she took a letter, and then relocked the desk.
‘Shall I give it him, or shall I not?’ she asked herself, as she held the letter between a thumb and finger of each hand and gazed intently at it. ‘It is not too late to destroy it. No one in the world need know that it was ever written. The temptation! the temptation!’
For a few moments she stood thus, gazing fixedly at the letter, as though there were some power of fascination in it, her tall figure swaying slightly to and fro. Then she roused herself as if from a dream, and said to herself: ‘No! I should be unworthy of his love, I should despise myself for ever, were I knowingly to let even the shadow of deceit come between us. There must be no more hesitation.’ She crossed to the chimney-piece and laid the letter on it. ‘Lie there till he comes,’ she said. ‘I will not touch you again—for fear.’
She shivered slightly, as if struck by a sudden chill, and going back to the window, she sat down in an easy-chair near it. A clock on the chimney-piece struck the hour with silvery tone. She started. ‘A few minutes more and he will be here,’ she said. She lay back in her chair, her head pressed against the cushions, her eyes closed, her slender fingers intertwined, in an attitude of utter abandonment. ‘Oh!’ she murmured, ‘if the ordeal were but over!’
(To be continued.)
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
The sudden appearance and subsequent disappearance of a volcanic island off the coast of Iceland, reminds us that there are natural wonders going on around us which cannot well be equalled in the pages of romance. This island had the shape of a flattened cone rounded at the top. It rose from the sea about twenty miles from the mainland. Last century, a similar phenomenon presented itself near the same place; but that island too had only a brief existence. It is not surprising that such structures should in course of time be demolished by the action of the waves, for these islands mostly consist of very loose materials, such as slag, ashes, and pumice-stone, which are readily acted upon by the surf. The disappearance of the island may, however, be due to other influences than that of the sea.