And all the while the music, a waltz of Waldteufel's, soft and ravishing
and seductive, floated out to her, and mocked her with the memory of the
happiness that had been hers but an hour--half an hour ago. She
staggered to the edge of the terrace and leaned her head on her hands,
and, closing her eyes, tried hard to persuade herself that it was only a
dream; just a dream, from which she should wake shuddering at the unreal
misery one moment, then laughing at its unreality the next.
But it was true. The dream had been the happiness of the last few weeks,
and this was the awakening.
Before her mental vision passed, like a panorama, the days which the
gods had given her--that they might punish her all the more cruelly for
daring to be so happy.
Yes; how often had she asked herself what right she, Nell of Shorne
Mills, had to so much joy? What had she done to deserve it?
She remembered now how, sometimes, she had been terrified by the
intensity of her joy. 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.