That she—­the proud and dainty, for whom no one had been good enough—­should have fallen thus easily to the careless attraction of a man to whom she was nothing, nothing but a piece of prettiness to be bought as cheaply as possible and treasured not at all.  Some whim of inspiration had moved him.  He had obeyed his Muse.  And he had been ready—­he had been ready—­even to offer her life in sacrifice to his idol.  She did not count with him in the smallest degree.  He had never cared—­he had never cared!

She lifted her face at last.  The torture was eating into her soul.  It was more than she could bear.  All the tender words he had spoken, the caresses he had lavished upon her, were as burning darts that pierced her whichever way she turned.  Her surrender had been so free, so absolute, and in return he had left her in the dark.  He had gone his careless way without a single thought for all the fierce devotion she had poured out to him.  It had only appealed to him while the mood lasted.  And now he had had enough of it.  He had gone.

The murmur of the summer sea came to her as she lay, and she thought of the Death Current.  Why—­ah, why—­had it been cheated of its prey?  She shivered violently as the memory of that awful struggle in deep waters came to her.  She had been saved, how she scarcely realised, though deep within her she knew—­she knew!

Her burning eyes fell upon the little wild white roses on the shelf.  Why had he brought them to her?  Why had he chosen them?  She felt as if they held a message for her, but it was a message she did not dare to read.  And then again she quivered as the dread memory of that night swept over her anew, and the eyes of flaming blue that had looked into hers.

Somewhere—­somewhere outside herself, it seemed to her—­a voice was speaking, very articulate and persistent, and she could not shut out the words it uttered.  She lacked the strength.

“I always knew,” it said, and it averred it over and over again, “as he loved you like mad.”

Love!  Love!  But what was Love?  Was any man capable of it?  Was it ever anything more than brutal passion or callous amusement?  And hearts were broken and lives were ruined to bring men sport.

She clenched her hands, still gazing at the wild white roses with their orange scent of purity.  Why had he sent them?  What had moved him to gather them?  He who had bargained with her, had wrung from her submission to his will as it were at the sword’s point!  He who had forced her to promise herself to him!  What was love—­or the making of love—­to such as he?

The sweetness of the flowers seemed to pierce her.  Ah, if they had only been Knight’s gift, how different—­how different—­had been all things.

But they had come from Rufus.  And so somehow their message passed her by.  The blackness of utter misery, utter hopelessness, closed in like a prison-cell around her soul.