I do not know what it
is, but I will find out. Coward! Go! Leave the house at once,
before I call in the stable-boys to turn you out, and never dare to
speak to me again!"
Victor Durnovo recoiled before her, conscious all the while that she
had never been so beautiful as at that moment. But she was
something far above him--a different creation altogether. He never
knew what drove him from that room. It was the fear of something
that he did not understand.
He heard her close the window after him as he walked away beneath
the trees.
She stood watching him--proud, cold, terrible in her womanly anger.
Then she turned, and suddenly sank down upon the sofa, sobbing.
But fortune decreed that she should have neither time to weep nor
think. She heard the approaching footsteps of her old servant, and
when the door was opened Jocelyn Gordon was reading a book, with her
back turned towards the window.
"That man Nala, miss, the paddle-maker, wants to see you."
"Tell him to go round to the verandah."
Jocelyn went out by the open window, and presently Nala came
grinning towards her. He was evidently very much pleased with
himself--held himself erect, and squinted more violently than usual.
"I have been to Msala," he said, with considerable dignity of
manner.
"Yes, and what news have you?"
Nala squatted down on the chunam floor, and proceeded to unfold a
leaf.
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