"Did it reach your ears," she said, reclasping a band of jewels on her
arm, "that John Oxon had been offered a place in a foreign Court, and
that 'twas said he would soon leave England?"

"I heard some rumour of it," Anne answered, her emotion getting the
better of her usual discreet speech. "God grant it may be true!"

"Ay!" said Clorinda, "would God that he were gone!"

But that he was not, for when she entered the assembly that night he was
standing near the door as though he lay in waiting for her, and his eyes
met hers with a leaping gleam, which was a thing of such exultation that
to encounter it was like having a knife thrust deep into her side and
through and through it, for she knew full well that he could not wear
such a look unless he had some strength of which she knew not.

This gleam was in his eyes each time she found herself drawn to them, and
it seemed as though she could look nowhere without encountering his gaze.
He followed her from room to room, placing himself where she could not
lift her eyes without beholding him; when she walked a minuet with a
royal duke, he stood and watched her with such a look in his face as drew
all eyes towards him.

"'Tis as if he threatens her," one said. "He has gone mad with
disappointed love."

But 'twas not love that was in his look, but the madness of long-thwarted
passion mixed with hate and mockery; and this she saw, and girded her
soul with all its strength, knowing that she had a fiercer beast to deal
with, and a more vicious and dangerous one, than her horse Devil. That