Nell of Shorne Mills

Presently she let them fall slowly and looked vacantly with her brows

drawn--as if waiting for the return of some sharp pain--in the direction

of Shorne Mills. The lights had gone out; so also had died the light of

her young life.

She tried to realize what this was that had happened to her; but it was

so difficult--so difficult! Only a little while ago she had been happy

in the possession of Drake's love. He had been hers--was her sweetheart,

her very own; he was to have been her husband; she was to have been his

wife.

And now--what had happened? Was she dead--had she done some evil thing

which had turned his love for her to hate and driven him from her?

Slowly the numbed sensation, the feeling of stupor passed, and the

truth, as she thought of it, came upon her with a rush and made her

press her hand to her heart as if a knife had stabbed it.

Drake loved her no longer. He had never loved her. The woman he had

loved was the most beautiful of God's creatures, and Drake had only

turned to her--Nell--in a moment of pique. And this woman with the

perfect face, and soft, lingering voice; this woman whose every movement

was grace itself, who carried herself like an empress--an empress in the

first flush of her beauty and power--had changed her mind and called him

back to her. And he had gone.

The fact caused such intense misery as to leave no room for resentment.

At that moment there was not one spark of anger, one drop of bitterness

in Nell's emotion; only misery so acute, so agonizing, as to be like a

physical pain.

It seemed to her so natural, so reasonable, that he should desert her

when this siren with the melting eyes, the caressing laugh, should

beckon him; for who could have resisted her? Not any man who had once

loved her.

Nell's head moved slowly from side to side, like that of an animal

stricken to death. Her throat had grown tight, her eyes were hot and

burning, the sound, as of the plash of waves, sang in her ears; but she

could not cry. It seemed to her that she would never be able to cry

again. She looked vaguely at the other women as they walked at the far

end of the terrace, and she shivered as if with bodily fear. There was

something terrible, Circe-like, to her in the face, the movements, the

very voice of this woman who had taken Drake from her.

Presently the two exquisitely dressed figures passed into the house, and

Nell rose, steadying herself by the pedestal. As she did so, she looked

up. A streak of light shot right across the statue, and the cruel face

with its leering eyes seemed to smile down upon her mockingly,

jeeringly, and she actually shrank, as if she dreaded to hear the satyr

lips shoot some evil gibe at her.