"You accuse me unjustly, Mrs. Westbury," she began with quiet dignity, that awed the older woman. "I have carried on no intrigue. No word of love has been uttered between us. He has not asked me anything that you and Lord Wrexford might not hear. He wrote me a letter of condolence—if you would like you can see it. It called for no answer. We had been friends since childhood. The home at Oaklands was like a second home to me. If Victor Savedra had been engaged to Amy Doncaster I should have felt just the same toward Lord Wrexford. Oh, I think he understands it better than you do."
"You needn't be so tragic about it. I am disappointed in you. I hoped to have a daughter who would love me tenderly, sincerely. If I had been opposed to the plan, your father would have left you there in that wild land among barbarians, who do not know what to do with their gold, when they have dug it out of the ground."
No, it was not for any real love for her, she had known that this long while. And now she understood that she and her stepmother were on lines that were too dissimilar for friendship even. She was an alien and a stranger, she would drift farther and farther away.
"You seem to have made up your mind that you cannot be happy here, that my regard is worth very little. Matters have changed with me somewhat. I shall not keep this house, I must get away from the remembrance that my dear husband has lain dead in it, after the awful tragedy. And if you have any choice——"
"Oh, I have, I have! Send me back home, that is all I ask. And—I do not want the money. My father's wish that you should have it all was right enough. You see, I never seemed like a real child to him. I do not think he cared much for my mother. Yes, let me go——"
The voice with its pathos did pierce Agnes Westbury's heart, but there were so many motives ranged on the other side, and she persuaded herself that the child really had been ungrateful and was incapable of any ardent or sustained feeling. It would be much better for them to part.
"I will consider," she said languidly. "Now go, I have a headache, and these scenes are too much for me in my weak and excited state. I have had so much sorrow to bear."
"Good-night," Laverne said. She did not offer the kiss that after it had failed to be tenderness, remained a perfunctory duty, but now had ceased to be even that.
"Good-night, to you. Mine will be wretched enough, they always are."
But after a few moments' thought, and when Laverne had dismissed the maid on the upper landing, she stepped briskly over to the desk, turned up the light, and wrote a letter to Victor Savedra.