"Ah!" cried Pamela sobbing. "Don't try to turn me back. Because I am unhappy, and a burden to myself, would you forbid me making another person happy, and he one worthy of all happiness?"
"It is not too late, Pam."
"It is too late. And here is Sylvia. See how punctual she is. She grudges me this half-hour alone with you."
Sylvia looked curiously at her sister's haggard and tear-stained eyes, but made no comment. She had little sympathy with Pamela's languid looks this summer. She was one who had never felt a wound, and so had scant comprehension of the troubles of her sister, whose lot, indeed, she considered a highly desirable one.
After a few minutes Pamela stood up and took her leave.
She went by the shady paths through the woods, and Pat, who had accompanied her, scurried hither and thither in pursuit of many a pair of bright eyes and many a white scut. She was in no hurry to get home. After the disturbance of her conversation with Miss Spencer, she dreaded the meeting with her fiancé.
It had been a shock to her to learn that, if she had not been so precipitate, her father would still have been safe; for Miss Spencer's life was to be counted by weeks, and Sylvia's tenderness for him could be trusted.
The green glades of the wood were exquisite. She looked about her—at the roof of branches against the blue-and-white sky, at the green moss, dotted with harebells, and flecked by broad patches of sunlight on its velvety shade. The birds were singing their last love-songs, and the wood was full of the music of many waters.
Ah! With an overwhelming revulsion of feeling it came upon the girl that if she were only free, with her life in her hands, the beauty of the free world were, as Miss Spencer had said, paradise enough. If she were but free, if she were but free!
She had come to the Wishing Well in the wood. She put up her hand to her throat. Round it was a slender little chain of jewels and gold which Lord Glengall had given her. It was choking her.