Exactly what had been in the heart of Edith Williams, who had adored Junior from childhood, when he suddenly appeared in her home and asked her to marry him, no one ever knew. The nerve strain had been so great that Edith was in a state of collapse when Junior brought her into his home. Mrs. Moreland immediately sent for Doctor Grayson and for her husband.

When Martin Moreland reached home and was made to understand what had happened, he was delighted. He did not share his wife’s terror that Edith might die on their hands. He laughed when she suggested the possibility and shocked her soul into a fuller realization than it ever before had known concerning the inner workings of his mind when he said scornfully: “Whatever she does, the marriage is perfectly legal. He is now her husband, her only heir. Let her die if she wants to!”

While his wife was judging him with the severest judgment she had ever measured out to him, she came to an abrupt stop as she observed that he was lavishing every attention upon Edith. He was doing everything in his power to quiet her, to humour her, to ingratiate himself. Then Mrs. Moreland thought that possibly he had been unfortunate in expressing himself. He really did have a tender heart; he really was delighted to have Junior safely married to a girl they knew. She immediately set herself to follow her husband’s example. She began doing things to humour and conciliate Edith, while Edith proved herself to have been wholly spoiled.

She hated the dark, forbidding house. The home in which she always had lived had been filled with light and sunshine and beautiful things of attractive colouring. She thoroughly disliked the sombre Mrs. Moreland with her sad face, her deep-set eyes, her sallow complexion. Beyond words, she hated Mr. Moreland. She could not endure his touch. The only thing in her surroundings she did not dislike was Junior. She had no hesitation about finding fault and complaining. Nothing pleased her; nothing was right; but she had no complaint to make concerning Junior. Both his father and his mother realized that to the furthest extent of her nature she was in love with Junior. She insisted that he should carry her to his room in his arms, and this he did. He helped his mother to put her to bed; he waited upon her like a servant. Junior, who never had performed for himself even the slightest service he could avoid, dumbfounded his parents by accepting the rôle Edith laid down for him. Instantly, he did exactly what she asked until his father remonstrated.

His face bore a look of shock and then of gratification when Junior said to him: “Can’t you see that I’ve got to? She hates this house. She hates you and Mother. She’s worth all that stack of money her father left. If I don’t keep her in a good humour with me, she’s got just three blocks to walk to go back to her uncle. Until I get her money in my hands, haven’t I got to keep her pleased with me?”

This was the point at which the elder Moreland smiled—a sardonic smile, a smile that set upon his face the most agreeable look of which it was capable. He nodded in confirmation. He rubbed his slender hands in high glee. He told Junior that he was exactly right, to spare neither money nor pains to pamper and to please Edith. He set about spending money upon her himself. He brought her more expensive gifts than either her father or her uncle ever had given her. Very shortly after the marriage, he carried to her a book of plans. He told her to look over them at her leisure and select the kind of house that she would enjoy living in. He suggested that Junior take her in the carriage, drive slowly over the town and the immediate surroundings, and let her choose any location she pleased upon which she would like to live.

This diverted Edith’s attention from herself. She delighted in taking these drives with Junior. She studied the residential locations of Ashwater with careful scrutiny, also attractive locations in the outskirts. Since the elder Moreland was complacent, since he had promised her a home for her wedding gift from him, she meant to see to it that she had such a home as would completely overshadow any other residence in the county. She was looking for an eminence, some place to set a house carefully planned and built, from which she could look down upon the remainder of the town. She meant to show every one that she had the finest, the most attractively furnished and located home among them. She was never so happy as when she rode beside Junior, or walked with him upon the streets, and when it was possible, before the eyes of even the most lowly, her face flamed with gratified pride if she could drop a handkerchief or a pair of gloves and let people see Junior snatch them up and return them to her. Her vanity was fed by his solicitude in public. She pretended to be more helpless than she was because she adored having the strong, handsome young man wait upon her. Up and down the length of Ashwater, she metaphorically trailed Junior at her chariot wheels.

Junior kept his body straight, his head high, and with a prideful flourish, introduced Edith as his wife everywhere that she was not known. There were two things of which he could be reasonably proud. The one was the amount of her fortune which she began transferring to his hands as speedily as she could get it into her possession, while the other was her appearance. She was still the frail, delicate girl she always had been, but having hypnotized herself into the belief that Junior had been overpowered by her beauty Commencement night, that he had truly been so attracted by her that he had forgotten Mahala, when he had asked Edith to become his wife, she had blossomed into the wide-open rose of love. She was a handsome woman whom any man might have been proud to be seen with, while Junior was a man to whom anything that he possessed multiplied immensely in value, merely because it was his possession.

CHAPTER XIV

“The Cloud That Grew”