Was it because her heart was
deeper, or because her sense of pain was greater than that of others?
Vera could not tell. She only wished, and longed, and even prayed that
she might have the strength to become Denis Wilde's wife; that she might
taste once more of peace, if not of joy; and yet all her longings and all
her prayers only made her realize the more how utterly the thing was
beyond her power.
To Maurice, and Maurice alone, belonged her life and her soul, and Vera
felt that it would be easier for her to be true to the sad, dim memory
of his love than to give her heart and her allegiance to any other upon
earth.
So she sat and mused, and pondered, and the amber light in the east faded
away into palest saffron, and the solemn shadows deepened and lengthened
upon the still bosom of the water.
Suddenly there came a sharp footstep and the rustle of a woman's silken
skirts across the stone flags behind her. She looked up quickly; Helen
stood beside her. Helen, in all the sheen of her gay Paris garments,
with the evening light upon her uncovered head, and the glow of a
passion, fiercer than madness, in her glittering eyes.
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