Not till after the guests had begun to retire did he
again see Wanda. Running upstairs to get a wrap for the fair shoulders
of a young lady, who preferred a moonlit seat on the lawn to the
rather oppressive warmth within doors, he chanced into a little
sitting-room in which Wanda, left alone for a moment, was resting with
closed eyes in a great easy chair. Fresh from her bath, with her damp
heavy hair lying along the folds of a loose white _neglige_, she
looked almost too tired to smile. Edward advanced with beating heart,
but stopped half-way, suddenly smitten by the sight of a pair of
little bruised feet, carefully bandaged, resting upon a stool--the
little feet that had travelled such a long hard road, that had been
torn and wounded for his sake. A great wave of shame swept over him.
"I am not worthy to stand in your presence," he said penitently,
kneeling at her side.
A low murmur of joy escaped the Indian Maiden's lips.
She drew his head down for a moment under the dusky curtain of her
overhanging hair, and then her eyes closed again.
Edward rose and beheld in the open doorway Helene DeBerczy; her large
gaze, darker than a thunder cloud, was illumined by a long lightning
flash of merciless irony.
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