Now Beatrice believed this no more. Love had kissed
her on the eyes, and at his kiss her sleeping spirit was awakened, and
she saw a vision of the truth.
Yes, she loved him, and must always love him! But she could never know
on earth that he was hers, and if she had a spirit to be freed after
some few years, would not his spirit have forgotten hers in that far
hereafter of their meeting?
She dropped her brow upon her arm and softly sobbed. What was there left
for her to do except to sob--till her heart broke?
Elizabeth, lying with wide-open ears, heard the sobs. Elizabeth, peering
through the moonlight, saw her sister's form tremble in the convulsion
of her sorrow, and smiled a smile of malice.
"The thing is done," she thought; "she cries because the man is going.
Don't cry, Beatrice, don't cry! We will get your plaything back for you.
Oh, with such a bait it will be easy. He is as sweet on you as you on
him."
There was something evil, something almost devilish, in this scene
of the one watching woman holding a clue to and enjoying the secret
tortures of the other, plotting the while to turn them to her innocent
rival's destruction and her own advantage.
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