It was all over now.  She had stepped down from the proud height of her glorious womanhood to ask for his love, and he had told her that he had none to give her.  She had thrown aside her pride, her delicacy.  She had let him read the guarded secret of her heart, only to hear his reply—­that she was not his ideal of womanhood.  She had asked for bread—­he had given her a stone.  She had lavished her love at his feet—­he had coolly stepped aside.  She had lowered her pride, humiliated herself, all in vain.

“No woman,” she said to herself, “would ever pardon such a slight or forgive such a wrong.”

At first she wept as though her heart would break—­tears fell like rain from her eyes, tears that seemed to burn as they fell; then after a time pride rose and gained the ascendancy.  She, the courted, beautiful woman, to be so humiliated, so slighted!  She, for whose smile the noblest in the land asked in vain, to have her almost offered love so coldly refused!  She, the very queen of love and beauty, to be so spurned!

When the passion of grief had subsided, when the hot angry glow of wounded pride died away, she raised her face to the night-skies.

“I swear,” she said, “that I will be revenged—­that I will take such vengeance on him as will bring his pride down far lower than he has brought mine.  I will never forgive him.  I have loved him with a devotion passing the love of woman.  I will hate more than I have loved him.  I would have given my life to make him happy.  I now consecrate it to vengeance.  I swear to take such revenge on him as shall bring the name of Arleigh low indeed.”

And that vow she intended to keep.

“If ever I forget what has passed here,” she said to herself, “may Heaven forget me!”

To her servants she had never seemed colder or haughtier than on this night, when she kept them waiting while she registered her vow.

What shape was her vengeance to take?

“I shall find out,” she thought; “it will come in time.”

Chapter XIV.

Miss L’Estrange was standing alone in the small conservatory on the morning following her eventful conversation with Lord Arleigh, when the latter was announced.  How she had passed the hours of the previous night was known only to herself.  As the world looks the fairer and fresher for the passing of a heavy storm, the sky more blue, the color of flowers and trees brighter so she on this morning, after those long hours of agony, looked more beautiful than ever.  Her white morning dress, made of choice Indian muslin, was relieved by faint touches of pink; fine white lace encircled her throat and delicate wrists.  Tall and slender, she stood before a large plant with scarlet blossoms when he came in.

Lord Arleigh looked as he felt—­ill at ease.  He had not slept through thinking of the conversation in the balcony—­it had made him profoundly wretched.  He would have given much not to renew it; but she had asked him to come, and he had promised.