r her the sentiment
which repelled, even while it attracted her toward Warwick's betrothed.
That he loved her she did not doubt, because she felt that even his
pride would yield to the potent fascination of this woman. As Sylvia
looked, her feminine eye took in every gift of face and figure, every
grace of attitude or gesture, every daintiness of costume, and found no
visible flaw in Ottila, from her haughty head to her handsome foot. Yet
when her scrutiny ended, the girl felt a sense of disappointment, and
no envy mingled with her admiration.

As she stood, forgetting to assume interest in the camellias before her,
she saw Gabriel join his cousin, saw her pause and look up at him with
an anxious question. He answered it, glancing toward that part of the
room where she was standing. Ottila's gaze was fixed upon her instantly;
a rapid, but keen survey followed, and then the lustrous eyes turned
away with such supreme indifference, that Sylvia's blood tingled as if
she had received an insult.

"Mark, I am going home," she said, abruptly.

"Very well, I'm ready."

When safe in her own room Sylvia's first act was to take off the holly
wreath, for her head throbbed with a heavy pain that forbade hope of
sleep that night. Looking at the little chaplet so happily made, she saw
that all the berries had fallen, and nothing but the barbed leaves
remained. A sudden gesture crushed it in both her hands, and standing
so, she gathered many a scattered memory to confirm that night's
discovery.

Warwick had said, with such a tender accent in his voice, "I thought of
the woman I would make my wife." That was Ottila. He had asked so
anxiously, "If one should keep a promise when it disturbed one's peace?"
That was because he repented of his hasty vow to absent himself till
June. It was not love she saw in his eyes the night they parted, but
pity. He read her secret before that compassionate glance revealed it to
herself, and he had gone away to spare her further folly. She had
deceived herself, had blindly cherished a baseless hope, and this was
the end. Even for the nameless gift she found a reason, with a woman's
skill, in self-torture. Moor had met Adam, had told his disappointment,
and still pitying her Warwick had sent the pretty greeting to console
her for the loss of both friend and lover.

This thought seemed to sting her into sudden passion. As if longing to
destroy every trace of her delusion, she tore away the holly wrea