assionate love still, or
passionate hatred that filled her now. The boundary line between strong
love and strong hate is but narrow at the best. A tumult that was agony
filled heart and brain. He had never cared for her; never, never! Out of
pure revenge upon Richard Gilbert he had mocked her with the farce of
love--mocked her from first to last, and wearied of her before one poor
week had ended.

"Lightly won, lightly lost," man's motto always, never more true than in
her case. Without one pang he had cast her off contemptuously, glad to
be rid of her, and had sent his uncle's servant to take her back to the
home she had disgraced, the hearts she had broken. She clenched her
hands--in the darkness she was walking up and down her room, and hoarse,
broken murmurs of a woman scorned and outraged came from her lips. She
could picture him even at this hour seated by the side of the girl he
was so soon to marry, his arm encircling her, his eyes looking love into
hers, his lips murmuring the old false vows, sealing them with the old
false caresses. Face downward she flung herself upon the bed at last,
wild with the remorse, the despair of her own thoughts.

"Oh," she cried; "I cannot bear it! I cannot, I cannot."

The darkness wrapped her, the deep silence of the night was around her.
Up stairs the Misses Waddle slept their vestal beauty sleep, commonplace
and content. A month ago she had pitied their dull, loveless, plodding
lives. Ah, Heaven! to be free from this torturing pain at her heart, and
able to sleep like them now. But even to her sleep came at last, the
spent sleep of utter exhaustion.

The morning sun was shining brightly when she awoke. She got up feeling
chilled and stiff, worn and grown old. Mechanically she bathed and
breakfasted--Miss Waddle the younger gazing askance at her white cheeks
and lustreless eyes. Mechanically she returned to her room, and began
packing her trunks. And then, this done, she sat with folded hands by
the window, looking out upon the sparkling sea, until noon and Mr.
Liston should come. Her mind was a blank; the very intensity of the blow
benumbed pain. Last night she had lain yonder, and writhed in her
torture; to-day she felt almost apathetic--indifferent to past, present,
and future. And so, pale and cold, and still, Mr. Liston had found her,
so she had shaken hands, and said good-by to the Misses Waddle, and so
she had been driven away from her "honeymoon paradise" to begin her