“Your pain, dear madam, is second to mine. I have no child, to be sure, but as few mothers love I love Alice Cheney, my dear husband’s granddaughter. My very life is bound up in her, and she—God help us, she loves your son with her whole soul. If he marries another it will kill her or drive her insane.”
The two women fell weeping into each other’s arms.
CHAPTER XII
Preston Cheney conceived such a strong, earnest liking for the young clergyman whom he met under his own roof during one of his visits home, that he fell into the habit of attending church for the first time in his life.
Mabel and Alice were deeply gratified with this intimacy between the two men, which brought the rector to the house far oftener than they could have tastefully done without the co-operation of the husband and father. Besides, it looked well to have the head of the household represented in the church. To the Baroness, also, there was added satisfaction in attending divine service, now that Preston Cheney sat in the pew. All hope of winning the love she had so longed to possess, died many years before; and she had been cruel and unkind in numerous ways to the object of her hopeless passion, yet like the smell of dead rose leaves long shut in a drawer, there clung about this man the faint, suggestive fragrance of a perished dream.
She knew that he did not love his wife, and that he was disappointed in his daughter; and she did not at least have to suffer the pain of seeing him lavish the affection she had missed, on others.
Mr Cheney had been called away from home on business the day before the new organist took her place in St Blank’s Church. Nearly a month had passed when he again occupied his pew.
Before the organist had finished her introduction, he turned to Alice, saying:
“There has been a change here in the choir, since I went away, and for the better. That is a very unusual musician. Do you know who it is?”
“Some lady, I believe; I do not remember her name,” Alice answered indifferently. Like her mother, Alice never enjoyed hearing anyone praised. It mattered little who it was, or how entirely out of her own line the achievements or accomplishments on which the praise was bestowed, she still felt that petty resentment of small creatures who believe that praise to others detracts from their own value.