At Love's Cost

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Do you feel ill? It's beastly hot.

Would you like to come outside?"

"No, no," she panted, with difficulty. "It is the heat--I am all right

now--I beg of you not to move--not to speak to me."

She fought against the horrible faintness, against the shock which had

overwhelmed her; she bit her lips to force the colour back to them, and

tried to keep her eyes from the tall figure, the handsome face against

which she had so often pressed her own; but she could not; it was as if

they were drawn to it by a kind of fascination. She saw that he looked

pale and haggard, and that the glance with which he swept the house was

a wearied one, in strange contrast to the smiling, complacent, and even

triumphant one of his father.

"Are you all right now?" asked Joseph. "I wish I'd brought a bottle of

smelling-salts. Will you come out and get something to drink--water

--brandy? No? Sure you're all right? Did you see Sir Stephen?

I wonder who the lady is beside him? Some swell or other, I'll

be bound. The other man must be Sir Stephen's son, for he's like him.

He's almost as great a personage as Sir Stephen himself; you see his

name amongst those of people of the highest rank in the fashionable

columns in the newspapers. The lady's got beautiful 'air, hasn't she?"

he went on, after a pause. "Not that I admire that colour myself; I'm

gone on black 'air." He glanced insinuatingly at Ida's.

When the interval expired, Sir Stephen and Stafford resumed their seat,

and, with a sigh of relief, Ida tried to listen to the music; but she

could hear Stafford's voice through it, and was obliged to shut her

eyes that she might not see him. Instinctively, and from Jessie's

description, she knew that the beautiful girl, with the complexion of a

lily and the wealth of bronze-gold hair, was Maude Falconer. Why was

she with Sir Stephen and Stafford? Was it, indeed, true that they were

engaged? Up to the present moment she had cherished a doubt; but now it

seemed impossible to doubt any longer. For how many minutes, hours,

years would she have to sit with those two before her, her heart racked

with the pangs of jealousy, with the memory of happier days, with the

ghastly fact that he had gone from her life forever, and that she was

sitting there a spectator of his faithlessness. Every song seemed to

mock her wretchedness, and she had to battle with the mad desire to

spring to her feet and cry aloud.