A NEW EXPERIMENT
Stella Wildmere would not leave the seclusion of her room. As the hours passed the more overwhelming grew her disappointment and humiliation, and her chief impulse now was to get away from a place that had grown hateful to her. She had bitterly reproached her father as the cause of her desolation, but thus far he had made no reply whatever. She had passed almost a sleepless night, and since had shut herself up in her room, looking at the past with a fixed stare and rigid face, over which at times would pass a crimson hue of shame.
Mrs. Wildmere went down to dinner with her husband, and then learned that Mr. Arnault had breakfasted with him. This fact she told Stella on her return, and the girl sent for her father immediately.
"Why did you not tell me that Mr. Arnault was here this morning?" she asked, harshly.
He looked at her steadily, but made no reply.
"Why don't you answer me?" she resumed, springing up in her impatience and taking a step toward him.
He still maintained the same steadfast, earnest look, which began to grow embarrassing, for it emphasized the consciousness which she could not stifle, that she alone was to blame.
She turned irritably away, and sat down on the opposite side of the room.
"It's just part and parcel of your past folly," she began. "If I had known he was here, and could have seen him or written to him—"
She still encountered the same searching eyes that appeared to be looking into her very soul.