"See! It is half-past eleven! I must go at once. I shall be locked
out now, as it is. I've been late so often recently. You know how
strict our rules are."
"But tell me that I may hope, Muriel. Only tell me that I may hope."
"It is useless," she answered hastily, twisting free her hand, and
re-arranging her veil at the mirror. "I have told you. Let me go."
"No, no! You shall not, unless you promise me. I love you, Muriel.
You shall not pass out of my life like this."
"It will be midnight before I get back," she cried distressed. "I had
no idea it was so late as this!"
"Your business matters not. To me your love is all--everything."
She stood erect before me, statuesque, queenly, looking upon me with her
dark-brown eyes, in which I thought I detected a glance of pity. But it
was only for an instant. Her face suddenly grew hard and set. There
was a look of firm determination, which told me that my hope could never
be realised; that she had spoken the truth; that she loved another.
"Good-bye," she said, in a voice half-choked with emotion, and as she
put forth her hand I grasped it and pressed it to my lips.
"Good-bye, Muriel," I murmured, with a bitterness felt in the depths of
my soul. "But may I not go with you to your door?"
"No," she responded, "I shall take a cab. Good-bye."
And as the tears again rose in her eyes she turned and went out.
I heard Simes saluting her a moment later, then the outer door closed,
and I sat motionless, staring before me fixedly. I had, during that
afternoon, awakened to the fact that I loved her; but it was, alas! too
late. Another had supplanted me in her affections.
She had left me hopeless, crushed, grief-stricken, and desolate.
Next day passed drearily, but on the next I sent Simes along to Madame
Gabrielle's with a note in which I asked Muriel to see me again, making
an appointment to meet her at Frascati's that evening. "Let me see you
once more," I wrote, "if for the last time. Do not refuse me, for I
think always of you."
In half an hour my man returned, and by his face I knew that something
unusual had occurred.
He had my note still in his hand.
"Well," I said inquiringly, "have you brought an answer?"
"Miss Moore is no longer there, sir," he answered, handing me back the
note.
"Not there?" I exclaimed, surprised.
"No, sir. I saw the head saleswoman, and she told me that the young
lady was not now in their employ."
"Not in their employ?" I echoed, starting up. "Has she left?"
"It appears, sir, that on Sunday night she broke one of the rules, which
says that no assistant may be out after eleven o'clock. She arrived at
midnight, and was yesterday morning instantly dismissed. They told me
that she took her belongings and went away without scarcely uttering a
word except to complain of the extremely harsh treatment she had
received. The manager of the firm was, however, inexorable, for it
appears that other assistants had constantly been breaking the rule, and
only a week ago a serious warning was posted up in the dining-room.
Miss Moore was therefore dismissed as an example to the others."
"It's infamous!" I cried. "Then no one knows where she now is?"
"No, sir. I made inquiries, but no one could tell me where I might
probably find her. She was, they say, heartbroken at this treatment."