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PURSUIT

237

cynical words and tone of his apology, however it may have been meant, only added fuel to her anger. Words were inadequate, so she sought refuge in flight. As she went out of the door she heard Colonel Ogilvie say as if to himself:

"I may not know how to speak to women; but thank God, I do know how to deal with that damned fellow!"

Judy threw herself on her bed in a storm of futile passion. She could not but feel that she had been brutally treated; but she was powerless to either resent or explain. But well she knew that she had helped to leave matters worse for poor Joy than they had been. All the anger that Colonel Ogilvie had been repressing had now blazed out. He had expressed himself, and she had never known such expression of his to fail in tragic consequences. He would now never forgive Mr. Hardy for his double sins of omissions and commission. She was sorry for the young man's sake; but was in anguish for the sake of the poor girl who had, she felt and knew, set her heart upon him. Joy's romance in which her heart—her whole being and her future happiness—had been embarked was practically over, though she did not know it as yet. All the life-long brightness that even her father had ever hoped for her was gone. Henceforth she would be only a poor derelict, like Judy herself, wrecked on a lee shore! Judy had always pitied herself, but she had never realized the cause of that pity as she did now, seen as it was through the eyes of loving sympathy.

"I pitied my own heart,
As if I held it in my hand,
Somewhat coldly,—with a sense
Of fulfilled benevolence,
And a 'Poor thing' negligence."

Colonel Ogilvie went out in a very militant humour to interview the motor-agent. He felt angry with himself for having lost his temper—and to a lady; and his anger had

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