Olivia found herself trembling. Oh, if he would only go away! She could bear it, if she were alone! If he only would not lie there and look regretful and pathetic!
From far up the valley to the southward floated the faint whistle of the evening express. "Mr. Allan," said Olivia, suddenly, "you _can_ do me a great service. Dr. Sands is coming on that train, and I promised Auntie to have a carriage sent for him. I forgot it. Would you mind attending to it? You might take the footpath down to Swayne's, and telephone, and I'll bring over the canoe."
Allan rose, with a look of relief which he could not quite disguise. "You're sure you don't mind going back alone?" he asked.
With a long troubled look at the girl's downcast face he turned away and hurried down the slope toward Swayne's. His own dream-castle was in ruins, too; for a month past he had begun to picture Olivia's tall charming figure in the castle entrance. She had all that he could possibly have desired in a woman: beauty, grace, humor, wealth--and she had seemed to like him--and now she was going blind! It was too bad--too bad. He felt very hard hit. He stopped to light his pipe, and then strode on, discontentedly.
Olivia threw herself face downward upon the soft, sun-warmed pine-needles, and lay there sobbing. It was hard to give him up; harder still to feel that he had never loved her at all. She had simply been mistaken. Childlike, she had fancied it was the sea-shell that was singing, when in reality the music was only the echo from her own pulse-beats. Wave after wave of maidenly shame throbbed to her cheeks and throat. She had wanted to be loved, before that pall was flung over her life, and while she could still be to her lover as other women were to theirs. But she had had no right--no right!
Moment by moment her girlhood seemed to slip away from her, like some bright vision that flees at day-break. She felt already the terrible helplessness of her doom, the loneliness of a blind woman who is growing old. High overhead the solitary, mateless white blackbird smoothed his creamy wings and settled himself to rest among the soughing branches. Morraway Mountain grew gray and distant. The mist began to rise from the swarthy lake. Between the trunks of the ancient pines the sunset glowed more and more faintly. The wind began to whisper solemnly in the woods. And still the girl lay prostrate between the roots of the great pine, praying to be forgiven for her selfishness.