Love is Triumphant Read Online Free Page A

Rosina.
    "Don't you understand?" she said in a husky voice. "To do him no harm is all I can hope for."
    "How can you say that?" cried Rosina. "He's a
    greedy, selfish coward. Why don't you hate him?"
    "Because I love him. Even now I love him. I cannot help it. One day you will love a man, more than your own life, love him so much that your own welfare means nothing as long as you can do him some good. When that day comes, you will understand."
    "I hope I never feel like that," Rosina said bitterly. "If love makes a slave of a woman, then I hope I never feel it."
    "I pity you if you never know love."
    "If I never know love, I shall never know pain," Rosina said in a hard voice.
    "And you will never know glory," Miss Draycott told her. "Now, if you don't mind, I would like to be quite alone."
    Her voice was no longer shaking, but firm and decided. Rosina had no choice but to do as she wished.
    In the doorway she stopped and looked back. Miss Draycott was still standing there, with her back to her.
    "Remember," Rosina said, "I am always your friend. I will do anything you wish."
    "Thank you."
    Miss Draycott made the reply over her shoulder, and it sounded hollow. After a moment, Rosina went out, shutting the door behind her.
    She waited for a moment in case she should be called back, but no sound came from behind the door, and at last she returned to her own room and sat down on the bed.
    She was startled by her own storm of feeling. How she hated the man who had taken her friend's love and then so callously tossed it aside in pursuit of greed and ambition.
    She paced up and down knowing that she would get no sleep that night. Sometimes she stopped and listened, but there was only silence.
    At last she could stand it no longer and slipped out into the corridor. At the bottom of the stairs she found a side door, unlocked it, and went out into the night. By going round the side of the building she would be able to see Miss Draycott's balcony.
    She moved out across the lawn and into the shadow of the trees. Then she stopped suddenly, alerted by what she had seen.
    Miss Draycott was standing by the open window. After a moment she stepped out onto her balcony.
    She was looking up into the sky, lost in a dream, and seemed completely unaware of the world around her. As Rosina watched, she raised her arms high as though appealing to the moon, and simply let herself fall.
    Time seemed to stop. Almost in slow motion she drifted down to earth while a long, mournful cry came from her. Frozen with horror, Rosina saw her fall two floors to crash onto the stones below.
    Now she forced her limbs to move, racing forwards across the lawn, praying that she might be in time to save Miss Draycott, even though she knew it was useless.
    She reached the figure lying on the hard stone and dropped down beside her. Blood was pouring from a wound in Miss Draycott's head. As if she sensed Rosina, she opened her eyes.
    "I'm – sorry," she whispered. "I could not – face life – without him."
    "Oh dear God!" Rosina wept.
    "But no harm must come – to him. You promise? No harm."
    It took all her strength to say, "I promise. I promise."
    "I trust you – my dear friend."
    She closed her eyes.
    "No!" Rosina sobbed. "Not like this."
    From somewhere in the distance she could hear shouts. People had heard the cry and were running to see what had happened.
    "Miss Draycott – please – don't go."
    But Miss Draycott did not move, and Rosina knew that she would never move again.
    As if a spotlight had suddenly come on, Rosina saw the letter clutched in the dead woman's hand. It was his letter, the one that had sent her to her death. If the world saw it there would be a scandal. Everyone would know that she had committed suicide, and why.
    Moving too fast for thought she seized the letter. Miss Draycott's dead grip on it was tight, as though even now she were unwilling to give up her last contact with him, but at last Rosina wrestled it from her. She just managed