CHAPTER XVI.
THE WIFE AND THE DAUGHTER.
Lady Hope was in her own room when Clara came in, pale and breathless, with news of her father's return. A cry broke from the woman, so thrilling in its exquisite joy, that it won Clara even from a remembrance of the harshness with which her lover had been received. In the birth of her own love, she found intense sympathy for the intense passion that seemed to consume her stepmother like a living fire.
"Oh! mamma Rachael, do you love him so much, and is this love nothing but a torment?" she said, kneeling down at the woman's feet, and trying to draw that wild face down to hers. "He is so cruel, so cruel, I almost hate him."
Lady Hope pushed the girl from her.
"What? Hate him?"
"Then why don't he love you more?"
"He does love me; how dare you question it?"
The words were harsh, but Rachael's voice faltered in uttering them, and the gloom of a hidden doubt broke into those great black eyes. Clara saw the look, and her heart ached with sympathy.
"Then why does he stay from us so long?"