"Dear Gwen! for I must still call you--ever hold you so--my life
hereafter will be as one who walks in darkness, waiting for death--ah,
longing for it!"
Despair has its poetry, as love; oft exceeding the last in fervour of
expression, and that of George Shenstone causes surprise to Gwen Wynn,
while still further paining her. So much she knows not how to make
rejoinder, and is glad when a _fanfare_ of the band instruments gives
note of another quadrille--the Lancers--about to begin.
Still engaged partners for the dance, but not to be for life, they
return to the drawing-room, and join in it; he going through its figures
with a sad heart and many a sigh.
Nor is she less sorrowful, only more excited; nigh unto madness, as she
sees Captain Ryecroft _vis-a-vis_ with Miss Powell; on his face an
expression of content, calm, almost cynical; hers radiant as with
triumph!
In this moment of Gwen Wynn's supreme misery--acme of jealous spite--
were George Shenstone to renew his proposal, she might pluck the
betrothal ring from her finger, and give answer, "I will!"
It is not to be so, however weighty the consequence. In the horoscope
of her life there is yet a heavier.
Volume Two, Chapter IX.