“When we first came out here,” said Forrester coolly, “I saw a lady take her seat within the recess of yonder window; she dropped the drapery of the curtain behind her, so as not to be observed from within, and she has been sitting in the deep shadow flung by this heavy column. She has heard every word we said; at least she has heard all I said, because I purposely deferred my most severe remarks until we passed within ear-shot.”
“For Heaven’s sake, what do you mean? you seem agitated; who was the lady?” asked Mrs. Dale.
“Do you not imagine? It was Miss Oriel.”
“Oh, Mr. Forrester, how could you do so? and to make me a party in such cruelty too;” exclaimed the lady, much vexed.
“Now that there are really no listeners, dear Madam, I will tell you the whole story, and you shall decide whether I am so very wrong; at all events I have had my revenge.”
And Cecil Forrester related to his warm-hearted friend the story of his love and its sudden extinction, not omitting a single word of the dialogue which he had overheard between the mother and daughter.
When they re-entered the saloon Miss Oriel had disappeared, but if Cecil could have known the tumult of her feelings he would, perhaps, have regretted his own vindictiveness. All the little feeling which she possessed, all that she had of heart, was bestowed on Cecil Forrester. She did not know how much she had valued him until she compared him with the object of her present pursuit; and, interested, selfish and ambitious as she was, she half determined to turn from the allurements of wealth if she could win back Cecil to his allegiance. To be thus outwitted, made the plaything of his idle hours, foiled at her own weapons, was a bitter mortification, and this, coupled as it was with a sense of unrequited tenderness, aroused her almost to madness. The cold, proud beauty shed tears of vexation and regret. She almost hated Cecil, and yet she was conscious that the most bitter drop, in the cup which had thus been returned to her own lips, was the assurance that he had never loved her. His quotation of her own remark about his fortune convinced her that he had overheard her plans, and she was now stimulated by pride to urge their speedy fulfilment.
——
THE LAST SCENE.
“Have you heard the news, Mr. Forrester?” exclaimed Mrs. Dale, as, two days after the confidential disclosure of the piazza, he entered the saloon; “Ah, I see by your look of innocent surprise, you are still in blissful ignorance.”