Page:The Country-House Party.djvu/67

 'But I was not happy; my heart grieved me the while. "Who was I," I thought, "to take a human soul to mould my way? What had he done to me that I should give him torture?" And in wounding him I had not served my friend, who passed me, thin and pale, with hatred in her eyes.

'Well might she despise me who had taken her love; but I did not dream she had in her heart such a wild, desperate love, or in her little body so dangerous a courage.

'One night, when I was sitting alone by my fire, I heard her step upon the stair; I knew it at once, and wondered at her coming, for she had not been near me for weeks. She came into the room without a word, and closing the door behind her, to my surprise turned the key in the lock. I smiled upon her, but little alarmed, for it never dawned upon me that she had any motive save to keep me from other visitors, while she scolded me for my unfaithfulness to her. Without a word she drew the key from the lock and put it in her pocket. When she came to the table where I sat, what was my surprise to see that she held in her hand a little pistol. I crouched