“But you cannot tell me here,” I said, somewhat softened by her repentance.
“No; my uncle will be out to-morrow evening, come to me then,” she replied, producing a visiting card, upon which she scribbled an address. “We are living at Richmond. If you cannot come, may I meet you?”
Taking the card, I said, “Very well, you shall explain matters if you wish. I will call to-morrow.”
“Do,” she implored; “I am sure I shall be able to satisfy you that I am not so very much to blame.”
We then shook hands and parted, for the orchestra having finished playing, the curtain had risen, and the theatre was too quiet to allow further conversation.
I returned to my seat, but on glancing up five minutes afterwards, saw that Vera was not in her box, and concluded that the burlesque had no longer any attraction for her.
Nugent’s inquiries after her health and well-being I answered satisfactorily, though I, myself, could not sit out the play, and returned home long before it was over.
I need not dwell upon the fearful suspense and mental torture in which that night was spent. Suffice it to say it was a period that seemed interminable, for my heart was racked by an intensity of emotion which can scarcely be conceived. The sight of Vera, in all her bewitching loveliness of old when we passed those happy days at Genoa, had awakened, with a thousand-fold energy, my love. Deceived as I imagined myself to have been, the one absorbing passion of my existence had still lived, in spite of all attempts to smother and subdue it by reason’s aid. One word from Vera, one look from those eyes into my own, had again laid me a captive at her feet, although I despised—hated—myself for what seemed mere weakness.
I knew it was a farce to seek an explanation, for, whatever it might be, I was ready to accept it. My heart could not be hardened against Vera. And then, should she in verity explain the mystery which hung around us both, that would mean the dawn of better days and brighter hopes.