Part 65 (1/2)

Philip, his face lit up with pa.s.sionate admiration, is gazing down into the lovely one so near him, that scarcely seems to shrink from his open homage. The merciless, cruel moon, betrays them all too surely.

Luttrell's pulses are throbbing wildly, while his heart has almost ceased to beat. Half a minute--that is a long hour--pa.s.ses thus; a few more words from Philip, an answer from Molly. Oh, that he could hear!

And then Shadwell stoops until, from where Luttrell stands, his face seems to grow to hers.

Tedcastle's teeth meet in his lip as he gazes spell-bound. A cold s.h.i.+ver runs through him, as when one learns that all one's dearest, most cherished hopes are trampled in the dust. A faint moisture stands on his brow. It is the bitterness of death!

Presently a drop of blood trickling slowly down--the sickly flavor of it in his mouth--rouses him. Instinctively he closes his eyes, as though too late to strive to shut out the torturing sight, and, with a deep curse, he presses his handkerchief to his lips and moves away as one suddenly awakened from a ghastly dream.

In the doorway he meets Marcia; she, too, has been a witness of the garden scene, and as he pa.s.ses her she glances up at him with a curious smile.

”If you wish to keep her you should look after her,” she whispers, with white lips.

”If she needs looking after, I do _not_ wish for her,” he answers, bitterly, and the next moment could kill himself, in that he has been so far wanting in loyalty to his most disloyal love.

With his mind quite made up, he waits through two dances silently, almost motionless, with his back against a friendly wall, hardly taking note of anything that is going on around him, until such time as he can claim another dance from Molly.

It comes at last: and, making his way through the throng of dancers, he reaches the spot where, breathless, smiling, she sits fanning herself, an adoring partner dropping little honeyed phrases into her willing ear.

”This is our dance,” Luttrell says, in a hard tone, standing before her, with compressed lips and a pale face.

”Is it?” with a glance at her card.

”Never mind your card. I know it is ours,” he says, and, offering her his arm, leads her, not to the ball-room, but on to a balcony, from which the garden can be reached by means of steps.

Before descending he says,--always in the same uncompromising tone:

”Are you cold? Shall I fetch you a shawl?”

And she answers:

”No, thank you. I think the night warm,” being, for the moment, carried away by the strangeness and determination of his manner.

When they are in the garden, and still he has not spoken, she breaks the silence.

”What is it, Teddy?” she asks, lightly. ”I am all curiosity. I never before saw you look so angry.”

”'Angry'?--no,--I hardly think there is room for anger. I have brought you here to tell you--I will not keep to my engagement with you--an hour longer.”

Silence follows this declaration,--a dead silence, broken only by the voices of the night and the faint, sweet, dreamy sound of one of Gungl's waltzes as it steals through the air to where they stand.

They have ceased to move, and are facing each other in the narrow pathway. A few beams from the illumined house fall across their feet; one, more adventurous than the rest, has lit on Molly's face, and lingers there, regardless of the envious moonbeams.

How changed it is! All the soft sweetness, the gladness of it, that characterized it a moment since, is gone. All the girlish happiness and excitement of a first ball have vanished. She is cold, rigid, as one turned to stone. Indignation lies within her lovely eyes.

”I admit you have taken me by surprise,” she says, slowly. ”It is customary--is it not?--for the one who breaks an engagement to a.s.sign some reason for so doing?”

”It is. You shall have my reason. Half an hour ago I stood at that window,”--pointing to it,--”and saw you in the shrubberies--with--Shadwell!”

”Yes? And then?”

”Then--then!” With a movement full of pa.s.sion he lays his hands upon her shoulders and turns her slightly, so that the ray which has wandered once more rests upon her face. ”Let me look at you,” he says; ”let me see how bravely you can carry out your deception to its end.