At Love's Cost

"Oh, I thought there was," she said. "Have you finished your horses?"

"No, miss," he replied. "I have the master's hunter and the mare you

ride to do yet."

She nodded and went out of the stable, humming one of her songs; but

she did not go very far. In five minutes she back again.

"Oh, Pottinger, don't trouble about those letters. I will ride into

Bryndermere myself."

Pottinger was in the mare's stall, and Mause stopped him as he was

coming forward, by saying: "Don't trouble; I'll take the letters from the wallet."

With Stafford's letter amongst her own in her pocket, she went quickly,

and yet without apparent hurry, to her own room, sent away her maid on

an errand, and slipped the bolt in the door. Rapidly she lit her silver

spirit-lamp and heated the water almost to boiling-point, and held the

envelope of Stafford's letter over it until the gum was melted and the

flap came open. Then she took out the letter, and, throwing herself

back in an easy-chair, read it slowly.

At first, as she read, her face burned, then it grew pale, and still

paler; every word of the bitter farewell, of the renunciation, written

as if with a man's heart's blood, stabbed her and tortured her with the

pangs of jealousy. Once she started to her feet, her hands clenched,

her head thrown back her eyes flashing; a superb figure--the tigress

aroused. At that instant she was minded to take the letter and fling it

in Stafford's face, and with it fling back the pledge which he had

given her the night before; then she collapsed, as it were, and sank

into a chair, dropping the letter and covering her face with her hands.

She could not. The strength of her love made her weak as water where

that love was concerned. Though her pride called upon her to surrender

Stafford, she could not respond to it.

Swaying to and fro, with her eyes covered as if to hide her shame, she

tried to tell herself that Stafford's was only a transient fancy for

this girl, that it was mere flirtation, a vulgar _liaison_ that she

would teach him to forget.

"He shall, he shall!" she cried behind her hands, as if the words were

wrung from her in her anguish of wounded pride and rejected love. "I

will teach him! There is no art that woman ever used that I will not

use--they say I am beautiful: if I am, my beauty shall minister to him

as no woman's beauty has ever ministered before. Cold to all the rest

of the world, I will be to him a fire which shall warm his life and

make it a heaven--It is only because he saw her first: if he had seen

me--Oh, curse her, curse her! Last night, while he was talking to me,

even while he was kissing me, he was thinking of her. But she shall not

have him! She has lost and I have won and I will keep him!"