Wild suggestions flung
themselves before her consideration. She would go back to her room,
dress herself in the best frock that Traill had given her and go to
supper there herself. She would wait there an hour, an hour and a
half if necessary, to see if he went home with them. That she had
almost decided on, when a man of whose presence, passing behind her
once or twice upon the pavement, she had been unaware, stopped by
her side.
"Waiting for some one?" he said, with that insinuating tone of voice
which disposes of any need for introduction.
She drew away from him quickly in horror, fear driving cold through
the hot blood of her jealousy. Then she turned, as he laughed to
conceal his momentary embarrassment, and hurried off in the
direction of Trafalgar Square.
That incident proved her waiting to be impossible. She walked slowly
home, all the spirit within her sinking down into an impenetrable
mood of depression from which not even the persistent hope that love
must win her back her happiness in the end had any power to raise
her. Now she was crushed--burnt out. Only the charred cinders and
the ashes of herself were left behind from the flames of that furnace
which had torn its way through her.
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