which should have been
the moment of his greatest powerfulness, who had mocked at and lashed him
in the face with the high derision of a creature above law, and who never
for one instant had bent her neck to the yoke which women must bear. She
had laughed it to scorn--and him--and all things--and gone on her way,
crowned with her scarlet roses, to wealth, and rank, and power, and
adulation; while he--the man, whose right it was to be transgressor--had
fallen upon hard fortune, and was losing step by step all she had won. In
his way he loved her madly--as he had loved her before, and as he would
have loved any woman who embodied triumph and beauty; and burning with
desire for both, and with jealous rage of all, he swore he would not be
outdone, befooled, cast aside, and trampled on.

At the playhouse when she looked from her box, she saw him leaning
against some pillar or stationed in some noticeable spot, his bold blue
eyes fixed burningly upon her; at fashionable assemblies he made his way
to her side and stood near her, gazing, or dropping words into her ear;
at church he placed himself in some pew near by, that she and all the
world might behold him; when she left her coach and walked in the Mall he
joined her or walked behind. At such times in my lady's close-fringed
eyes there shone a steady gleam; but they were ever eyes that glowed, and
there were none who had ever come close enough to her to know her well,
and so there were none who read its meaning. Only Anne knew as no other
creature could, and looked on with secret terror and dismay. The world
but said that he was a man mad with love, and desperate at the knowledge
of the powerfulness of his rivals, could not live beyond sight of her.

They did not hear the words that passed between them at times when he
stood near her in some crowd, and dropped, as 'twas thought, words of
burning prayer and love into her ear. 'Twas said that it was like her to
listen with unchanging face, and when she deigned reply, to answer
without turning towards him. But such words and replies it had more than
once been Anne's ill-fortune to be near enough to catch, and hearing them
she had shuddered.

One night at a grand rout, the Duke of Osmonde but just having left the
reigning beauty's side, she heard the voice she hated close by her,
speaking.

"You think you can disdain me to the end," it said. "Your ladyship is
_sure_ so?"

She did not turn or answer, and there follo