dastard!" she thinks, her black eyes gleaming dangerously; "the
coward! How dare he do it! One day or other he shall pay for it, that I
swear; but I cannot meet him now. There is nothing for it but to go and
tell Mr. Darcy I must leave, and take my chance in the world, quite
alone."

She leaned her forehead against the cold, clear glass with a heavy
heart-sick sigh. The first keen poignancy of her pain was over, but the
dull, deadly sickening ache was there still, and would be for many a
day. Hate him she might, long for retaliation she did, but not once
could she think of him the happy husband of Helen Holmes without the
very heart within her growing faint with deadly jealousy. The sound of
his name, the sight of his letters, had power to move her to this day.
In the drawing-room below a carefully-painted portrait of the handsome
face, the bright blue eyes, the fair, waving hair, hung--a portrait so
true, that it was torture only to took at it, and yet how many hours had
she not stood before it, her heart full of bitterness--until burning
tears filled and blinded her dark impassioned eyes.

Now he and his bride were coming home to this house, and she was
expected to stay here and meet them. Expected by Mr. Darcy, who had
learned to love her almost as a daughter; expected by Mr. Liston, who
had told her she must confront Laurence Thorndyke in this very house,
and show him to uncle and wife as he really was--a coward, a liar, a
seducer.

"I cannot do it!" she said, her hands clenching together. "I cannot meet
him. _Mon Dieu_, no! not yet--not yet."

She had been introduced into the house just two weeks after the marriage
as "my niece from the country--Jane Liston." As Jane Liston she had
remained here ever since, winning "golden opinions" from all the
household. She had found Mr. Darcy a decrepit, irritable old invalid,
bored nearly to death since his ward's wedding--lonely, peevish, sick.
He had looked once into the pale, lovely face, and never needed to look
again to like her. Trouble and tears had not marred her beauty. A little
of the bloom--there never had been much--all of the sparkle, the gay
brilliance that had charmed Richard Gilbert were gone; but the
eighteen-year-old face was very sweet, very lovely, the dark Canadian
eyes, with their unutterable sadness and pathos, wonderfully
captivating; and old Hugh Darcy, with a passion for all things fair and
young, had become her captive at once.

"You suit me fi