Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story

Just then Zuleika heard a little sharp sound which, for the fraction of an instant, before she knew it to be a clink of metal on the pavement, she thought was the breaking of the heart within her. Looking quickly down, she heard a shrill girlish laugh aloft. Looking quickly up, she descried at the unlit window above her lover’s a face which she remembered as that of the land-lady’s daughter. “Find it, Miss Dobson,” laughed the girl. “Crawl for it. It can’t have rolled far, and it’s the only engagement-ring you’ll get from HIM,” she said, pointing to the livid face twisted painfully up at her from the lower window. “Grovel for it, Miss Dobson. Ask him to step down and help you. Oh, he can! That was all lies about his spine and ankle. Afraid, that’s what he was--I see it all now--afraid of the water. I wish you’d found him as I did--skulking behind the curtain. Oh, you’re welcome to him.” “Don’t listen,” Noaks cried down. “Don’t listen to that person. I admit I have trifled with her affections. This is her revenge--these wicked untruths--these--these--” Zuleika silenced him with a gesture. “Your tone to me,” she said up to Katie, “is not without offence; but the stamp of truth is on what you tell me. We have both been deceived in this man, and are, in some sort, sisters.” “Sisters?” cried Katie. “Your sisters are the snake and the spider, though neither of them wishes it known. I loathe you. And the Duke loathed you, too.”