With the last words, she drew the betrothal ring from her finger and hurled it far into the rolling water.
"Flora, what have you done?" Kitty exclaimed, as she leaned over the railing of the bridge and stretched out her hand as if to catch the ring ere it fell. In vain: it had sunk beneath the stream. Would the waters bear it away, or would it fall and lie buried near the house where sorrow had come with the advent within its walls of faithful, loving human souls? The young girl half expected to see the pale, dead woman who had once found refuge beneath those waves arise from their glittering depths to bring back the rejected symbol of fidelity. With a shudder, she covered her eyes with her hand.
"You little fool, you look as if I had thrown myself in!" Flora said, with a cold smile. "A woman with less force of character and will might have done so perhaps. _I_ simply cast from me the last link of a detested chain." She raised her hand, and seemed to caress the finger whence the ring had been drawn. "It was but a slender circlet of gold, simple as the man there"—she nodded towards the house—"would pretend to be with his affectation of Spartan manners, and yet it weighed upon me like iron. Let it lie buried and rust: I begin a new life."
Yes, she had thrown aside the burden,—thrown it aside "at all hazards," as she herself had said. The bugbear of a hated marriage vanished: the sun of fame would rise in its stead.
Flora hurried on as if the ground were burning beneath her feet, and Kitty silently followed her. In her young mind all was for the moment a wild tempest of confusion and uncertainty; the sound, healthy judgment she was wont to bring to bear upon men and things was obscured: she was tossing, rudderless, between right and wrong, truth and falsehood. Did not the beautiful creature beside her—the personification, as it were, of glaring wrong, arrogance, and cruel self-will—conduct herself with all the determination and complacent resolve of one to whom no other course lay open? Was not Flora trampling beneath her feet her plighted word, every consideration of truth and honour?
In the vestibule of the villa the servant informed the two sisters that the Frau President had visitors: two old friends had come to tea.