33]

It was not harshly said but very anxiously.

“I—I thought,” was my feeble reply, “that Edgar, my cousin, was to have that happiness. That this dance—this ball—was in celebration of an engagement between them. Surely I was given to understand this.”

“By him?”

I nodded; the room was whirling about me.

“Did he tell you like a man in love?”

I flushed. What a question from him to me! How could I answer it? I had no objection now to Edgar marrying her; but how could I be true to my uncle or to myself, and answer this question affirmatively.

“Your countenance speaks for you,” he declared, and dropped the subject with the remark, “There will be no such announcement to-night. If Edgar’s hopes appear to stand in the way of any you might naturally cherish, you may eliminate them from your thoughts. And so I ask again, do you think you could love my Orpha; really love her for herself and not for her fortune? Love her as if she were the one woman in the world for you?”

He had grown easier; the flush and sparkle of health were returning to his countenance. It smote my heart to say him nay; yet how could I be worthy of her if I misled him for an instant in so important a matter.

“Uncle,” I cried, “you forget that I have never seen my cousin Orpha. But even if I had and found her to be all that the most exacting heart could desire, I could not give her my love; for that has gone out to another—and irrevocably if I know my own nature.”

He laughed, snapping his finger and thumb, in his recovered spirits. “That,” he sung out, “for any other love when you have once seen Orpha! I had forgotten that I kept her from you when you were here before. You see I am not the man I was. But I may find myself again if—”[Pg 34] He paused, tried to rise, a strange light suddenly illuminating his countenance. “Come with me,” he said, taking the arm I hastened to hold out to him.

[Pg 34]

Steadying myself, for I quickly divined his purpose, I led him toward the door he had indicated by a quick gesture. It was that of his so-called den from which I had always 

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