She shuddered dreadfully. 'He is my enemy,' she said slowly. 'Oh! no, no!--not my enemy! Yours--not mine!'
The figure came up to her, and turned her pale face to the flashing lights of the north. 'You can't love him yet, girl?'
'I gave him my heart,' she moaned, tearing herself away from him. 'You cannot love against inclination, neither may you hate at will. I would hate him, but I'm too weak--I cannot.' A moment's pause, then she cried at him again, 'Why should I hate him--because he is your enemy? Tell me, how has he wronged me--tell me that?'
It was difficult indeed to convince that innocent trusting heart of a man's treachery and faithlessness.
'All right,' he said again, with the same touch of pity in his voice. 'Listen here a few minutes while I tell you.'
Then he stood by her side and narrated a tale of black treachery, of darkest cowardice. A man had committed the crime, which might not be forgiven. He had fled from deserved retribution, knowing there was one man who held the damnatory secret. Then he had encountered that man, and determined to silence him for ever.
But when he again became silent and wiped the cold frost dews from his face, the girl bent like a crushed flower, knowing that the joy of life was gone--that the dark shadow of grief had settled eternally across her path. Amid the sighing of the wind and the sharp passion of her own sense came the clear memory of her own words:--_'If anyone should kill my heart with sorrow, I would give life and strength to the cause of vengeance. I should never turn back.'_
The man at her side was astounded at the entire change that had passed, like the devastating breath of the cyclone, over the girl. A plain, blunt man, and inartistic, he could not know that pure happiness is one of the principal factors of human beauty, that its dissolution should be attended by such startling alteration, both of face and form. Menotah was a different being, of new appearance and manners. The bright light had faded from the lustrous eyes, now forbidding and snake-like. The unrestrained laugh had left the mouth, which was now set in a hard line of purpose. From her sunken cheeks had departed the rich health colour, from her hanging head that haughty pose of conscious perfection. Within, the heart was dead--cold--unresponsive. No longer did it pulsate with mingled delicious emotions of devotion and trust. It was now controlled only by an unrelenting design--by the inexorable duty of the future.