For Woman's Love

by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

She would also write to Sylvan, who from the very first had disliked and distrusted "the rose that all admire." And she thanked Heaven that Cadet Haught would graduate at the next exhibition at West Point and come home on leave for the midsummer holidays.

While waiting answers from the two absent men she would consult her Uncle Clarence. Truth to tell, she had but little hope of help in this affair from her younger uncle. Mr. Clarence was so far from thinking evil of any one. He was so loath to give pain or have any disturbance in the domestic circle. He would be sure to feel compassion for Rose Stillwater. He would be sure to recall her pretty, helpful, pleasant ways, and the comfort both his father and his mother used to take in her playful manners and affectionate ministration. Mr. Clarence was much too benevolent to wish to interfere with any arrangement that was likely to make the house pleasant and cheerful to his aged father, and give a comfortable home and support to a desolate young widow. And that the Iron King should ever be seriously taken in by the beautiful and bewitching creature he would never believe. Yet Cora knew from all past experience that Rose Stillwater was more esteemed by old Aaron Rockharrt and had more influence over him than any living creature. Strange that a man so hard headed as the Iron King, and so clear brained on all occasions when not blinded by his egotism, should allow himself to be so deceived in any one as he was in Rose Stillwater.

But, then, she knew how to flatter this egotism. She was beautiful and attractive in person, meek and submissive in manner, complimentary and caressing in words and tones.

Cora asked herself whether it would be right, proper, or expedient for her to give information of that secret interview between Mr. Fabian and Mrs. Stillwater, to which she herself had been an accidental and most unwilling witness, on that warm night in September, in the hotel parlor at Baltimore.

She could not refer to it in her intended letter to her Uncle Fabian. To do so would be useless and humiliating, if not very offensive. Her Uncle Fabian knew much more about that interview than she could tell him, and would be very much mortified and very indignant to learn that she knew anything of it. He might accuse her of being a spy and an eavesdropper, or he might deny and discredit her story altogether.

No. No good could come of referring to that interview in her letter to her Uncle Fabian. She would merely mention to him the fact that Mrs. Stillwater had written to Mr. Rockharrt an appealing letter declaring herself to be widowed and destitute, and asking for advice and assistance in procuring employment; and that he had replied by inviting her to Rockhold for an indefinite period, and sent her a check to pay her traveling expenses. She would tell Mr. Fabian this as a mere item of news, expressing no opinion and taking no responsibility, but leaving her uncle to act as he might think proper.

She could not tell her brother Sylvan of that secret interview, for she was sure that he would act with haste and indiscretion. Nor could she tell her Uncle Clarence, who would only find himself distressed and incapable under the emergency. Least of all could she tell her grandfather, and make an everlasting breach between himself and his son Fabian.

No. She could tell no one of that secret interview to which she had been a chance witness—a shocked witness—but which she only half understood, and which, perhaps, did not mean all that she had feared and suspected. On that subject she must hold her peace, and only let the absent members of the family know of Mrs. Stillwater's intended visit as an item of domestic news, and leave any or all of them to act upon their own responsibility unbiased by any word from her.

Cora's position was a very delicate and embarrassing one. She did not believe that this former nursery governess of hers was or ever had been a proper companion for her. She herself—Cora Rothsay—was now a widow with an independent income, and was at liberty to choose her own companions and make her home wherever she might choose.

But how could she leave her aged and widowed grandfather, who had no other daughter or granddaughter, or any other woman relative to keep house for him? And yet how could she associate daily with a woman whose presence she felt to be a degradation?