She looked at him in sudden alarm, her bright bloom fading out. He had taken one of her little hands, and her fingers closed involuntarily over his.
"Going away!" she repeated. "Going away!"
He smiled slightly. His masculine vanity was gratified by the irrepressible confession of her love for him.
"Not from you, my dear little Rose. To-morrow you will know all--where I am going, and who I am."
"Who you are! Are you not Mr. Reinecourt?"
"Certainly!" half laughing. "But that is rather barren information, is it not? Can you wait until to-morrow?"
His smile, the clasp in which he held her hand, rea.s.sured her.
"Oh, yes," she said, drawing a long breath, "I can wait!"
That day--Rose remembered it afterward--he stood holding her hands a long time at parting.
"You will go! What a hurry you are always in," he said.
"A hurry!" echoed Rose. "I have been here three hours. I should have gone long ago. Don"t detain me; good-bye!"
"Good-bye, my Rose, my dear little nurse! Good-bye until we meet again."
CHAPTER VII.
HON. LIEUTENANT REGINALD STANFORD.
Rose Danton"s slumbers were unusually disturbed that night. Mr.
Reinecourt haunted her awake, Mr. Reinecourt haunted her asleep. What was the eventful morrow to reveal? Would he tell her he loved her? Would he ask her to be his wife? Did he care for her, or did he mean nothing after all?
No thought of Jules La Touche came to disturb her as she drifted off into delicious memories of the past and ecstatic dreams of the future.
No thought of the promise she had given, no remorse at her own falsity, troubled her easy conscience. What did she care for Jules La Touche?
What was he beside this splendid Mr. Reinecourt? She thought of him--when she thought of him at all--with angry impatience, and she drew his ring off her finger and flung it across the room.
"What a fool I was," she thought, "ever to dream of marrying that silly boy! Thank heaven I never told any one but Grace."
Rose was feverish with impatience and antic.i.p.ation when morning came.
She sat down to breakfast, tried to eat, and drink, and talk as usual, and failed in all. As soon as the meal was over, unable to wait, she dressed and ordered her horse. Doctor Frank was sauntering up the avenue, smoking a cigar in the cold February sunshine, as she rode off.
"Away so early, Di Vernon, and unescorted? May I--"
"No," said Rose, brusquely, "you may not. Good morning!"
Doctor Frank glanced after her as she galloped out of sight.
"What is it?" he thought. "What has altered her of late? She is not the same girl she was two weeks ago. Has she fallen in love, I wonder? Not likely, I should think; and yet--"
He walked off, revolving the question, to the house, while Rose was rapidly shortening the distance between herself and her beloved. Old Jacques was leaning over the gate as she rode up, and took off his hat with Canadian courtesy to the young lady.
"Is Mr. Reinecourt in, Mr. Jacques?" asked Rose, preparing to dismount.
Jacques lifted his eyebrows in polite surprise.
"Doesn"t Mademoiselle know, then?"
"Know what?"
"That Monsieur has gone?"
"Gone?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle, half an hour ago. Gone for good."
"But he will come back?" said Rose, faintly, her heart seeming suddenly to stop beating.
Old Jacques shook his head.
"No, Mam"selle. Monsieur has paid me like a king, shook hands with Margot and me, and gone forever."
There was a dead pause. Rose clutched her bridle-rein, and felt the earth spinning under her, her face growing-white and cold.
"Did he leave no message--no message for me?"
She could barely utter the words, the shock, the consternation were so great. Something like a laugh shone in old Jacques" eyes.
"No, Mademoiselle, he never spoke of you. He only paid us, and said good-bye, and went away."
Rose turned Regina slowly round in a stunned sort of way, and with the reins loose on her neck, let her take her road homeward. A dull sense of despair was all she was conscious of. She could not think, she could not reason, her whole mind was lost in blank consternation. He was gone. She could not get beyond that--he was gone.
The boy who came to lead away her horse stared at her changed face; the servant who opened the door opened his eyes, also, at sight of her. She never heeded them; a feeling that she wanted to be alone was all she could realize, and she walked straight to a little alcove opening from the lower end of the long entrance-hall. An archway and a curtain of amber silk separated it from the drawing-room, of which it was a sort of recess. A sofa, piled high with downy pillows, stood invitingly under a window. Among these pillows poor Rose threw herself, to do battle with her despair.
While she lay there in tearless rage, she heard the drawing-room door open, and some one come in.
"Who shall I say, sir?" insinuated the servant.
"Just say a friend wishes to see Miss Danton," was the answer.
That voice! Rose bounded from the sofa, her eyes wild, her lips apart.
Her hand shook as she drew aside the curtain and looked out. A gentleman was there, but he sat with his back to her, and his figure was only partially revealed. Rose"s heart beat in great plunges against her side, but she restrained herself and waited. Ten minutes, and there was the rustle of a dress; Kate entered the room. The gentleman arose, there was a cry of "Reginald!" and then Kate was clasped in the stranger"s arms.
Rose could see his face now; no need to look twice to recognize Mr.
Reinecourt.
The curtain dropped from Rose"s hand, she stood still, breath coming and going in gasps. She saw it all as by an electric light--Mr. Reinecourt was Kate"s betrothed husband, Reginald Stanford. He had known her from the first; from the first he had coolly and systematically deceived her.
He knew that she loved him--he must know it--and had gone on fooling her to the top of his bent. Perhaps he and Kate would laugh over it together before the day was done. Rose clenched her hands, and her eyes flashed at the thought. Back came the colour to her cheeks, back the light to her eyes; anger for the moment quenched every spark of love. Some of the old Danton pluck was in her, after all. No despair now, no lying on sofa cushions any more in helpless woe.