Dora sat up, extended her arms, and for a moment the two remained locked in a tight, sobbing embrace. Neither spoke after that. Tenderly releasing her daughter's twining arms, Mrs. Barry went out and softly closed the door. In her own room, in utter darkness, she undressed. Before retiring, and with the sunbonnet still on her head, she knelt beside a chair in the room and started to pray, but somehow the needed words failed to come. Prayer is born in hope in some sort of faith, at least, but this lone widow, brave as her front appeared, had neither. “Oh, Edwin!” she suddenly cried out, “she was your idol, your little pet; you used to say, as she sat on your knee in the firelight at night, that she was born to be lucky and happy. You said her beauty, genius, and gentleness would draw the world to her feet. You hoped all that for her, Edwin, and yet there she is bowed down in the greatest shame and sorrow that can fall to a young girl's lot. On the day you left never to return, you told me of the great Virginia family from which she was descended, and said that some day we'd be grandparents of children that would make us proud. Poor, dear Edwin!--that was only one of your pretty dreams--_our_ grandchild, if God lets it come, won't even have a name of its own, and may bear this curse through a long life to its grave. Oh, Edwin!--my gentle, loving husband--you are here by my side to-night, aren't you? You are here putting your dear spirit arms about me, trying to comfort me, and you will help her, too, dear husband, as you are helping me. Hold up the sweet, stricken child. Fill her dark life with your own unrealized dreams. Give her something--_anything_ to help her bear her burden! That's my prayer to you, Edwin--to you, and to God!” She went to her bed and threw herself down. Tears welled up in her, but she forced them back, and, dry-eyed and still, she lay with her wrinkled face near to the wall. CHAPTER X |ONE evening, two days later, General Sylvester and his niece and nephew sat on the front veranda to catch the cool breezes which swept across the town and stirred the foliage of the trees on the lawn. The old gentleman had been urging Margaret to go to the piano in the big parlor and sing for them, but she had persistently declined. Since Fred Walton's leaving, despite her evident efforts to appear unconcerned, she had not seemed to her watchful brother and uncle to be at all like herself, and they were constantly trying to divert her mind from the unpleasant matter. At this juncture Kenneth Galt's carriage and pair of spirited blacks, driven by John Dilk, his faithful negro coachman, came briskly down the street, and turned into the adjoining grounds through the gateway to the gravelled drive, and drew up at the steps of the house, which was not very different from the Dearing home in size, period, and architecture.