"I did not grant you that privilege," at length broke from Hazel, in a faltering manner--her cheeks flushing and her soft blue eyes dancing.

"I could not resist the temptation," and taking her two hands in his, added: "Hazel, I love you! Will you be mine?"

"Why, Mr. Corway!" replied the maid, disengaging herself.

She spoke and acted quietly, while a bewitching smile shone in her eyes.

At that moment, unnoticed by them, a shadow suddenly darkened the doorway. It did not tarry long, and swiftly disappeared.

Unseen herself, Virginia had entered the conservatory, her footfalls as light as her joyous young heart, the happiest of the happy.

Hearing that voice, she had paused, then gently parted some leaves and--the smile died on her lips.

She stood for a moment like one transfixed, listening in an amazed wonder, then, undiscovered, she silently withdrew into deeper foliage.

"Why draw away from me, Hazel?" went on Corway.

"Because! You may not be sincere!" replied the girl, shyly.

"Not sincere? Hazel, from the first moment that I beheld you I felt that I stood in the presence of my fate."

"But, Mr. Corway,"--she returned, with that provoking smile still lurking about the corners of her pretty mouth--"don't you love any other?"

"No," he softly replied.

"Are you sure?"

"Sure!"

"Not even Virginia?"

"I respect her, but do not love her--Oh, Hazel, do not keep me in suspense. Tell me you requite my love--promise to be mine, to cherish and protect forever"--and again he took her unresisting hand in his and drew her near him.

"Well, this is so serious that--don't you think that I should have a little time to consider it?"

Her face had taken on a half-serious look, but the little cloud was quickly chased away by a happy smile.

Nor did it escape the eager eye of her sweet-heart. He saw that her hesitation was not to be taken seriously, and as a test he said in soft, tremulous accents: "Then the girl I would die for does not love me, does not care for me--"

Turning half around to him, in a pleading and half-reproachful way, she tenderly emphasized: "Oh, I do love you, Joe, with all my heart."

And throwing wide her arms, fell on his breast, with the joy of a maiden's first love flushing her face.

And then their lips met--deep in the sweet intoxication of love's first confiding trust.

"Thou perfect flower! To express the fullness of my heart would be impossible," he joyfully exclaimed.

And thus, while pressing her hand on his shoulder and feeling a ring on her finger, he gently removed it.

"Oh! that's Virginia's ring; that is, I got it from her," she protested feebly, her head pillowed on his breast.

"It shall be a 'Mizpah' of trust, dearest, and shall come back to you with an engagement ring," he softly replied, as he slipped it into his vest pocket.

In one of Virginia's happy girlish moments, she had picked up the ring from Constance's dressing table, and admiring its beauty, smilingly slipped it upon her own finger, with the owner's permission to wear it awhile, but with the injunction to "be careful not to lose it, dear, for I value it very highly. It was John's gift to me before we were married"--and then later, on that same day, with Hazel's arm clasping her waist and her own arm clasping Hazel's, the two happy girls strolling through the grounds--to have Hazel remove it in the same admiring fashion and slip it on her own finger, Virginia yielding to her young cousin, just as Constance, in perfect trust, yielded to her.

And then in the morning, all forgetful of the ring, she left for the Valley farm.

And now, on her sudden return, she beheld that same ring taken by Corway as a size for Hazel's engagement ring, and heard him declare "it shall be a Mizpah of trust, dearest."

A sigh unconsciously escaped her; a sigh freighted with the blood of fibers as love tore itself away from her heart.

Hazel heard it, and in alarm said to Corway: "What is that? Did you hear it? So like a moan?"

He looked around. "You were mistaken, dearest; there is none here but you and me."

"Oh, yes, I heard it"--and with a timidity in which a slight sense of fear was discernible, said: "Let us go out in the open."

But he held her firm, loath to release the beautiful being clasped close to his heart.

"This is for truest love"--and he kissed her again, as she looked up through eyes of unswerving fidelity. "This for never-faltering constancy"--and again their lips met--"And this, a sacred pledge of life's devotion, G.o.d helping me, forever more"--and their lips met yet once again.

Then they pa.s.sed out to join Mrs. Thorpe and Rutley.

Virginia had witnessed the pledge that meant the blighting of her life's fond hopes, and she had heard his pa.s.sionate declaration.

With straining eyes and a very white face, she watched them depart, till there welled up and gathered thick-falling tears that mercifully shut him out from her sight. She sat down on a bench.

She thought of the honeyed words and eager attention with which he wooed her, and made captive her young heart's deepest, most ardent pa.s.sion, and now his perfidy was laid bare.

With an effort she became more composed, and exclaimed aloud: "So, the almighty dollar is the object of Joseph Corway's devotion." And as her indignation increased, she sprang from her seat, and with quivering voice, said: "Oh, G.o.d! and I did confide in him so fondly, trusted him so guilelessly, and now our engagement is ended and all is over between us--forever." And notwithstanding her effort to suppress them, sob after sob burst forth.

Strong-minded and of powerful emotions, Virginia Thorpe was a queenly woman, a woman whose friendship was prized by her acquaintances, and whose wealth of intellect was a charm to a strikingly graceful figure; and the love that was in her nature once awakened, grew and intensified day by day till at last a steadfast blaze of trust and confidence glorified her personality.

Such she bore for Corway--until she discovered he loved Hazel. Oh, what a change then came over her, as her heart yielded up its dearest desire in tears of scalding bitterness.

"Oh, Joe! tenderly I loved you, pa.s.sionately I adored you, and you led me to believe that you loved none but me, yet all the time your heart had gone out to another, and this is no doubt the real reason you wanted our engagement to be kept a secret, and my love, which no woman had greater, was but a plaything!" she thought to herself.

She looked at the roses she had unconsciously held in her hand, with infinite tenderness, then crushed them, and broke them.

"Farewell, sweet emblems of truth and love." And throwing the flowers, which she had so fondly kissed but a few moments before, among dead leaves on the ground, said in a voice that trembled with the pathos of the death of love's young dream:

"Thus perish all my young life's happy hopes. Gone! Gone among the things that are dead." Sobs of bitterest disappointment again burst from her lips.

Suddenly she brushed her hand across her eyes--it was then that Virginia's transformation took place.

From the guileless, joyful, winsome maid, emerged a woman--beautiful, but alas, subtle, alert and avenging. With a stamp of her foot she said, with sudden determination:

"Away with these tears. What have I to do with human feelings now? I will conquer this weakness, though in the process my heart be changed to stone.

"Now, Corway, beware of me, for you shall know that the love you have toyed with has changed to hate, an unappeasable, undying hate, and you shall learn, too, that a woman's revenge will pause at nothing that will help to gratify it." Then she slipped out of the conservatory, with the intention to get to her room, if possible, un.o.bserved, but was halted by hearing Constance say: "Virginia, dear! I wish to make you acquainted with Lord Beauchamp."