It seemed that the
end had now come in very truth, and she was conscious chiefly of
a wild impulse to escape from her shame and suffering. There was
also a bitter sense of wrong and a wish to retaliate.
"I'll teach them all a lesson," she muttered, as she paced her room
swiftly to and fro. "This proud artist thinks he can look at me as
if I were empty air; that he can forget me as he has the rose-bud
he tossed away. I will insure that he looks at me once with
a face as white as mine will then be, and that he remembers me to
his dying day."
After becoming more calm, and as if acting under a sudden impulse,
she hastily made a simple but singular toilet.
When completed, her mirror reflected a plain, close-fitting, black
gown, which left her neck and arms bare. Around her white throat
she placed a black velvet band, and joined it by a small jet poniard
studded with diamonds. Her sunny hair was wound into a severely
simple coil, and also fastened with a larger poniard, from the haft
and guard of which glistened diamonds of peculiar brilliancy. She
took off all her rings, and wore no other ornaments. Then taking
from her table a book, bearing conspicuously as its title the word
"Misjudged," she went down to the parlor.
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