oy. That day Drake had told her that he loved her; the
morning he had taken her in his arms and kissed her; the night he had
looked down into her eyes and sworn that no man in all the world loved
any woman as he loved her. She had not deserved it, had no right to it,
and God had punished her for her presumption in daring to be so happy.

But now what was she to do?

She asked the question with a kind of despair.

It never for one moment occurred to her that she should accuse Drake of
his faithlessness, much less that she should upbraid him. Indeed, what
would be the use? Could she--she, an ignorant, half-taught girl, just
Nell of Shorne Mills--contend against such a woman as this Lady Luce?

Luce! Luce! She remembered--for the first time that night, strangely
enough--how he had murmured the name in his delirium. She had forgotten
that, she had not thought of it, and had not asked who the woman was
whose visage haunted him in his fever.

If she had only done so! He would have told her--yes, for Drake was
honest; he would have told her--and she would not have allowed herself
to fall in love with him. Even as it was, she had fought against it; but
her struggle had been of no avail. She had loved him almost from the
first moment.

And now she had lost him forever!

"Drake, Drake, Drake!" her heart called to him, though her lips were
mute.

What should she do?

No; she would not upbraid him. There should be no "scene." She knew
instinctively how much he would loathe a scene. She would just tell
him--what? That--that--it had all been a mistake; that--she did not love
him, and--and ask him to give her back her freedom.

That was all. Not one word of Lady Luce would she say. He would go--go
without a word; she knew that.

And now she must go back to the ballroom, and try and look and behave as
if nothing had happened.

Was she very white? she wondered dully. She felt as if she had died, and
was buried out of reach of any pain, beyond all possibility of further
joy. Her life was indeed at an end. That kiss of Drake's--to her it had
appeared as if indeed it had been his, and not Luce's only, stolen from
him unawares--that kiss had killed her.

Let Ibsen be a great poet and dramatist, or a literary fraud, there are
one or two things which he says which strike men with the force of a
revelation; and when he speaks of the love-life which is given to every
man and woman, and calls him and her a murderer who kills it,