"Percy! I entreat you!" she whispered, "can we not bury the past?"
"Pardon me, Madame, but I understood you to say that your
desire was to dwell in it."
"Nay! I spoke not of THAT past, Percy!" she said, while a tone
of tenderness crept into her voice. "Rather did I speak of a
time when you loved me still! and I. . .oh! I was vain and frivolous;
your wealth and position allured me: I married you, hoping in my heart that
your great love for me would beget in me a love for you. . .but, alas!. . ."
The moon had sunk low down behind a bank of clouds. In the
east a soft grey light was beginning to chase away the heavy mantle of
the night. He could only see her graceful outline now, the small
queenly head, with its wealth of reddish golden curls, and the
glittering gems forming the small, star-shaped, red flower which she
wore as a diadem in her hair.
"Twenty-four hours after our marriage, Madame, the Marquis de
St. Cyr and all his family perished on the guillotine, and the popular
rumour reached me that it was the wife of Sir Percy Blakeney who
helped to send them there."
"Nay! I myself told you the truth of that odious tale.
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