MAUDE SOMERTON had thrown her hat down in
one place, her gloves and shawl in another, and donning
her dressing-gown, stood by the open window of
her room at Oakwood, looking out upon the beauty of the
night, but thinking more of Jack and the words he said to her
during their walk from Leighton, than of the silvery moonlight
which lay so calmly upon the lawn below. They had
lingered behind the others, and taken more time by half an
hour to reach Oakwood, than the rest of the party had
done. And Maude had been very quiet and gentle, and
walked demurely at Jack's side, with her hand resting confidingly
upon his arm, while he told her first the story of his
love for Edna Churchill; then of his comparative poverty,

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and of the little crippled Annie, who must he his care as
long as she lived. The Heyford name was a good and
honorable one, he said, and never had been tarnished to his
knowledge, and still there was in the family a shadow of
disgrace, the nature of which he could not explain to her;
he could only say that he had had no part in it, and it could
by no means affect him or his future. Maude was morally
certain that Georgie was in some way connected with this
“shadow of disgrace,” but she made no comment, and listened
while Jack asked her, if, knowing what she did, she
could consent to be his wife, and a sister to little Annie,
who suffered so much for want of other companionship than
that of old Luna, the colored woman, who kept his house
for him.

There was a spice of coquetry about Maude Somerton; it
was as natural for her to flirt as it was to breathe, but there
was something in honest Jack Heyford's manner which
warned her that he was not the man to be trifled with. She
could play with silly Ned Bannister and drive him nearly
wild, and make even poor Uncle Phil Overton's heart beat
so fast, that the old man, who was mortally afraid of heart
disease, had applied a sticking plaster to the region of inquietude,
but she must be candid with Jack. She must tell
him yes or no, without qualification of any kind, and so at
last she answered “Yes,” and Jack, as he stooped to kiss
her upturned face, on which the moonlight was shining, felt
as if Heaven had suddenly opened to his sight, and let the
glory through.

And thus they were betrothed, and they lingered for a few
moments under the shadow of the piazza at Oakwood, and
whispered anew their vows of love, and when Jack asked it
of her, Maude put up her lips and kissed his handsome face,
and let her arm linger about his neck, and then started back
like a guilty thing, as the door came together with a bang,

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and she heard the click of the key turning in the lock. It
was Georgie fastening up, but she opened the door again at
Jack's call, and looked sharply into their faces as they passed
her, but said nothing except, “I supposed everybody was in.”

“Tell her, Maude,” Jack said, as he ran up the stairs to
his room; while Maude walked leisurely to her own chamber,
in which there was a door communicating with Georgie's
apartment.

The two girls never slept together, but frequently, when
Maude was in a very irrepressible mood, or Georgie unusually
amiable and patronizing, they visited each other and
talked together while disrobing for the night. Now, however,
Maude felt more like communing with the moonlight
and whispering her happiness to the soft September wind,
which just lifted her bright hair as she leaned from the window,
than talking with her future sister-in-law, and she feigned
not to hear the knock upon the door and Georgie's voice
asking if she might come in. But when the knock was repeated,
and the voice had in it a note of impatience, she
opened the door, and Georgie came in, brush and comb in
hand, with her long black hair rippling over her crimson
dressing-gown with its facings of rich satin. Everything Georgie
wore was of the most becoming as well as expensive kind,
and she made a very beautiful picture as she sat combing and
arranging her glossy curls under a silken net. But there was
a strange disquiet about her to night, a feeling of unrest and
vain longing for the years gone forever, the time when she
was as young, and fresh, and pure as Maude Somerton or
the girl at Leighton Place, who had so disturbed her equanimity,
and of whom she had come to speak to Maude.

She found it hard, however, to begin, but at last made the
attempt by saying:

“I say, Maude, what about that young lady at Leighton?
Who is she; that is, what is her real name?”

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“Her real name?” and Maude opened her blue eyes
wonderingly. “She is Miss Louise Overton. You have
known that all the time. Why do you ask me so queer a
question?”

“Maude, this will never do,” and Georgie's eyes had a
stony look in them. “You pride yourself on ferreting out
things, and you have not been at Rocky Point with the soidisant
Miss Overton so much for nothing. You know who
she is, and I know too.”

“And pray who is she?” Maude asked, her cheeks flushing
and her temper beginning to give way.

“She was Edna Browning, and Charlie Churchill's wife.
My memory is not so short that I have forgotten the girl at
Iona, bruised and scratched as she was then. I recognized
her almost immediately, and I wonder at her temerity in venturing
to a place where she knew she would see me more or
less. Why did she come,—that is, why has she taken another
name than her own?”

There was no use for Maude to pretend ignorance any
longer, and she frankly replied:

“Her coming here was my own plan. The change of name
was long ago, when she first went to Rocky Point. Her uncle
preferred and insisted that she bear his name, and so she
joined her second to it which made her `Louise Overton.'
I want Roy and his mother to like her, and both, or rather
Mrs. Churchill is more likely to do this if she knows her
first as a stranger. Roy will like her any way; he cannot
help it.”

Maude had made her explanation and waited for Georgie's
reply, which was:

“I think less of the girl now than I did before, and so will
Roy and his mother when I tell them, as I shall.”

“Tell them,” Maude repeated, her blue eyes beginning
to blaze with anger; “tell them, Georgie! You certainly

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cannot intend anything as mean as that! If Edna wishes
to remain incog., can you not, as a woman, respect her
wishes, and keep her secret to yourself?”

“No; neither is it my duty to lend myself to the deception.
I do not pretend to be one of the good ones, as you
do, but I am a lover of truth, and should feel that I was acting
a lie every time I addressed that girl as Miss Overton,
or heard her addressed as such. She has some deep-laid design
in what she is doing,—some design, which I shall take
immediate steps to frustrate. I shall go to Mrs. Churchill
to-morrow, and tell her who the girl is she has taken into
such favor.”

Georgie paused here and went on brushing her glossy hair,
while Maude, who had been gathering all her forces for a
grand onslaught and total rout of the enemy, said calmly:

“That is your decision, is it?”

“Yes, that is my decision, from which nothing can turn
me.”

“Then, Georgie, hear me,” and Maude came close to
Georgie, and looking her fully in the face, began: “You
will not respect Edna Churchill's secret, and you talk grandly
of being a lover of truth and hating to act a lie. Georgie,
your whole life is a lie, and has been for years!”

Maude spoke very slowly and kept her eyes fixed upon
Georgie, over whose face there crept a look of terror, and
whose hands shook as they shed back the mass of hair from
her forehead, where drops of perspiration were visible. In
her excitement Maude had used rather stronger language
than Jack's hint could warrant, but Georgie's manner convinced
her that she could venture still further, and she continued:

“You have a secret, which you are guarding sedulously
from the world, but, Georgie, just so sure as you breathe a
word to any one against Edna, or tell that she is not Miss

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Overton, or try, in any way, to prejudice either Roy or his
mother, or anybody against her, just so sure people shall
know that little passage in your life which you have hitherto
succeeded in keeping from them. On the other hand, if you
respect Edna's secret, yours too shall be respected, as it has
been heretofore. Do you acquiesce in this? Is it a bargain
between us?”

There was no need for Georgie to answer; her white, terrified
face, from which her old assurance and haughtiness had
fled, was a sufficient reply; and she sat for a moment staring
at her companion in utter bewilderment. Then, with a tremendous
effort, she recovered in part her composure, and
said:

“I do not know what right you have thus to threaten me,
or what you may have heard to my disadvantage from my
enemies. I am not afraid of you, Maude, or of what you can
do to harm me. Don't think I am, I beg; but if it's any
favor to you or Jack, for I know he has something to do with
it, I will let the girl remain in peace at Leighton, only devoutly
hoping that the childish face which lured poor Charlie
Churchill to his death will not also be the ruin of my brother,
whose penchant in that direction I very strongly suspect.”

“Spare your suspicions there,” Maude said, and her voice
was gentler now.

She had conquered Georgie wholly, and she began to feel
a kind of pity for the proud woman who had been so terribly
humbled, and who hereafter would inevitably stand somewhat
in fear of her.

“Georgie,” she continued, “I have no wish to quarrel
with you. I loved Edna Churchill before I knew who she
was. You will like her, too, when you know her better, but
she will never be your sister. Don't fear for that, though
Jack did love her once, and asked her to be his wife, up at
Rocky Point last summer, and she refused him; and now the

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great, kind-hearted fellow has come to me to be consoled,
and, Georgie, well,—I may as well tell you, for he said I
might,—I am to be your sister some day, and I do not want
to begin by quarrelling with you; I mean to make Jack a
good wife and be a mother to little Annie; he told me about
her, and I almost cried with thinking of the poor creature,
sitting all day in her chair or lying in her crib so lonely, talking
sometimes to herself, he said, and sometimes to you, for
company, and again praying that Jesus will make her patient
to bear the pain in her back and hip, which is dreadful
at times. Yes, I mean to be kind to her, even if I worry
Jack's life out of him. Speak to me, Georgie, and say if you
are glad I am to be your sister?”

Maude had offered her hand to Georgie, over whom a
curious change had passed. The expression of fear was
gone, and as Maude talked of Annie, there came a softer
look into her face, and grasping Maude's offered hand, she
burst into such a passionate fit of weeping and bitter sobbing,
that Maude, forgetting all her anger, knelt down beside
her, trying to soothe and quiet her, and asking what was the
matter, and if she had offended her.

“I did not want you to tell of Edna,” she said, “and I
was harsh with you about that; but, Georgie, I want to like
you, and you must like me, for Jack's sake, if nothing else.”

“I do, I will,” Georgie gasped; “but Maude, oh, Maude,
why did you open a grave I had thought closed forever? I
am glad you are to be Jack's wife,—glad for him, and glad
for Annie. She will have a mother in you, I know, and may
God deal with you and yours as you deal with her; oh, my
darling, my darling!”

In her excitement Georgie said more than she would
otherwise have done, and with that passionate cry, “my darling,
oh, my darling,” she seemed suddenly to recollect herself,
and, wresting her hand from Maude, she rose up swiftly

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and went back to her own room, leaving Maude more perplexed
and confounded, and more kindly disposed toward
Georgie withal than she had ever been in her life.

“I have sealed her lips with regard to Edna,” she thought,
“but I have wounded her cruelly somewhere. How she
did cry about that little Annie, and what can the secret be
that just the mention of it affects her so much?”

But wonder as she would, Maude was very far from the
truth, and never dreamed of the cloud resting upon the
woman, who in the next room sat with her head bowed
down under a load of so bitter shame and humiliation, that
it seemed as if she never again could lift it up as proudly
and assuredly as she had done before. The world was very
dark to Georgie then, and more evils than one seemed
to be threatening her. Maude knew her secret, in part,
if not in whole,—knew enough, at least, to blast her good
name with Roy, should she dare to breathe a hint against
Miss Overton. Her hands were tied in that direction, and
when she remembered the admiring glances she had seen
Roy give to Edna, and thought of all the opportunities he
would have of seeing and knowing, ay, and of loving her,
too, she writhed with pain, feeling an almost certain presentiment
that this young girl, whom from the first she had to a
certain degree felt to be her evil genius, had at last come between
her and that for which she had waited and hoped so long.
Purer, better thoughts, too, were stirring in Georgie's heart,—
thoughts of little Annie, to whom Maude was to be a
mother.

“And I am glad,” she whispered; “for I know she will
be kind to Annie, and, for Jack's sake, will keep my miserable
secret. Oh, that I should ever have come to this, when
a word from a weak girl can turn me from my purpose!
Yet so it is, and Edna Browning is safe; but, heavens! how
I hate her!”

p595-245

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Georgie's demon was possessing her again, and her black
eyes blazed with passion as she thought of Edna Browning;
but she could not do her harm, and she must pretend to like
her, through her great fear of Maude, whom she felt as if she
hated, too, until she remembered Annie; and then there
came a gush of tears, which cooled her feverish passion, and
made her more humble and subdued, as in her velvet slippers
she paced the floor noiselessly, until she heard a distant
clock striking the hour of two.

There was to be a croquet party at Leighton on the morrow,
and knowing how mental agitation and loss of sleep
told upon her looks, Georgie ceased her rapid walking, and
bathing her flushed face profusely with water, crept shivering
to bed, and by a strong effort of the will, such as but few
can practise, she succeeded in quieting her nerves, and slept
peacefully at last.