East of the Shadows

But Philippa did not speak. She was wrestling with the most insupportable sensation of mingled misery and revolt, and she seemed to hear words as clearly spoken as though the speaker were actually by her side--"He does not love you. It is not you he loves."

A surge of anger blotted out the sunshine and darkened the whole world, and through the darkness one lightning flash shot through the girl's sick heart. This was jealousy. Suddenly she felt she could not bear it--she could not sit there beside the man she loved and hear him talk of other days which she had never known and of his love for another woman. In a minute or two the storm passed, but it left her faint and numb, with the beautiful veil which had enveloped her dream of bliss torn to ribbons.

She fought desperately to recover her self-possession and succeeded to a certain extent, but her hands were so cold that she could hardly feel the reins, and in her ears there sounded the rushing of great waters.

Step by step the old pony trod down the steep, uneven track, and the necessity for careful driving seemed sufficient excuse for her preoccupation.

"We must come here again," said Francis thoughtfully. "It will help me to remember;" and then, as though his thoughts had gone back to the scene enacted long ago on the place they had just visited, he added half to himself, "Dear little girl, with her happy face and clouds of dark hair under a scarlet cap!"

Philippa suppressed a wild desire to scream aloud. The words were like a knife turning in her heart at the moment; but to her relief he did not speak again until they reached the house.

Keen and a footman were waiting for them at the door, and he was carried up-stairs to rest as usual after his drive. Philippa followed, and arranged his cushions and attended to his comfort in the way that had become habitual to her, but she left him as quickly as she could and sought the privacy of her own room. She wanted to be alone to battle with the unexpected enemy which had in some unaccountable way stormed the stronghold of her heart and threatened to lay it in ruins. The words Marion had spoken--words which had been utterly unheeded at the time--now battered for admission to the fortress and met with slight resistance. "His love is not for you--every bit of the love in his heart belongs to another woman." It was not true! It could not be true! Francis loved her--now--to-day. What right had the woman who had failed him to rob her, the living Philippa, of one corner of his heart? For she wanted it all. She, by right of her love for him, claimed his every thought, she could not spare one.