So he had written to her frankly of all that had happened since he came to Florida. He knew how sorry she would be that he had chanced upon Cinthia Dawn again, but he knew also that the sorrow would be offset by the knowledge that the young girl had overcome her unhappy love, and would in all probability be won by Frederick Foster. He wrote of their pledge of friendship, their frequent meetings, her apparent indifference to himself, and her preference for Fred’s society. Although the proud mother was pleased to know all these things, yet she railed in secret at Cinthia’s indifference. “Fickle and unstable, like her father! Who could expect anything else of such a parentage?” she thought, bitterly, the somber dark eyes flashing with passion. On this dreary December day, at Idlewild, she was shut into her luxurious _boudoir_, away from the rain and sleet of a most inclement day, cradled in warmth and luxury, the air sweet with flowers, and melodious with the songs of a large cage of canaries. A morning-robe of purple brocade, bordered with rich fur, wrapped the queenly form from the slightest breath of cold. But with all her luxury and grandeur she was not happy, this proud woman, who turned her eyes from the beautiful room to gaze through the richly curtained windows at the dreary day, as perhaps more in consonance with her gray mood. Certainly there was much in the past to darken her life with an ineffaceable shadow, and nothing in the future to throw any light on the present. Once her life had been radiantly happy in the sunlight of wedded love, but a terrible trial had come upon her which ended in divorce and a desolated home. The passionate pride of a strong nature had helped her to bear it before the eyes of the world. What she suffered in secret only Heaven knew. In her pride she would have perished rather than unmask her secret suffering. “Through many a clime ’twas mine to go, With many a retrospection curst, And all my solace is to know, Whate’er betides I’ve known the worst. What is that worst? Ah, do not ask, In pity from the search forbear; Smile on, nor venture to unmask My heart and view the hell that’s there.” She tapped with restless fingers on the windowpane, muttering: “What a dismal, dreary day! I wish I had gone to Florida with Arthur and Fred. There all is sunshine and beauty, while here in Virginia the rain drips down the pane like tears, the winds howl like a banshee, and the leafless vines tap against the walls like ghostly fingers. I hate it all, I hate my life that is gray and cold like the day.” A sudden thought came to her like an inspiration: