It is "Paulina," swaggering down the hill with a devil-may-care mien, her gun still over her shoulder, her hands in her pockets.
They catch the words, which ring full and clear:
"And constancy lives in realms above,
And life is thorny and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain."
"She is like a 'troll,'" murmurs Eleanor, "shrieking in the night."
"A magnificent creature," says Carol. "Quite a picture!"
His eyes are riveted on the retreating form!
CHAPTER XXI.
BY A ROUTE OBSCURE AND LONELY,
HAUNTED BY ILL ANGELS ONLY.—E. A. Poe.
Eleanor is taking her siesta, wrapt in dreams of Carol and love. No thought of evil disturbs her rest, for to-day the clouds seem to have blown over. Carol has been tender and adoring as of old, he speaks no more of the dreaded up-rooting, but is peaceful and content. Yet while she lies in fancy-land—asleep—she cannot see him in the room below, a look of excitement on his face while he writes with feverish haste on a large sheet of flimsy paper.