"If I could tell the story of the rose garden, and of what the sun-dial
saw, and what the moon shone on--" he said.

He heard her draw her breath sharply through her teeth, he saw her white
bosom lift as if a wild beast leapt within it, and he laughed again.

"His Grace of Osmonde returns," he said; and then marking, as he never
failed to do, bitterly against his will, the grace and majesty of this
rival, who was one of the greatest and bravest of England's gentlemen,
and knowing that she marked it too, his rage so mounted that it overcame
him.

"Sometimes," he said, "methinks that I shall _kill_ you!"

"Would you gain your end thereby?" she answered, in a voice as low and
deadly.

"I would frustrate his--and yours."

"Do it, then," she hissed back, "some day when you think I fear you."

"'Twould be too easy," he answered. "You fear it too little. There are
bitterer things."

She rose and met his Grace, who had approached her. Always to his
greatness and his noble heart she turned with that new feeling of
dependence which her whole life had never brought to her before. His
deep eyes, falling on her tenderly as she rose, were filled with
protecting concern. Involuntarily he hastened his steps.