Dawn of the Morning

by Grace Livingston Hill

Dawn sprang to her feet, her hands clasped, her face white with anger, the lightning in her eyes.

"You are saying things that are not true! You are blaming me for what I have not done. I will not hear another word of it. I did not want to marry your son Harrington. He came after me while I was in school and tormented me to marry him. Afterward, he told my father and made him think it was all fixed between us and Father wrote and gave his consent, and they planned the wedding and everything without asking me a thing about it. I did not want to go home, because I was frightened. I did not want to be married. I knew Father would be angry if I should break it off after everything was arranged. He is very proud, and has a terrible temper. But I dreaded it so that I was almost crazy.

"I don't know yet how it came about that Harrington didn't come to the wedding. No one has told me, and I hadn't thought to ask, I was so glad to find I wasn't married to him. I didn't know anything about being married to your other son. I thought I was being married just as it was planned to—to Harrington. I don't know how that happened either. I haven't had time to ask Charles yet. I just found out a few minutes ago that he and I had been married."

"That is a highly improbable story," began the astonished woman in the bed. "You will not gain anything by telling me tales like that. Nothing but the strict truth is ever spoken in this family. You will only bring trouble upon yourself by telling what is not true. Besides, you certainly know that I would not believe a thing like that. In the first place, why shouldn't you want to marry Harrington? He certainly is as good as you are. And the very idea that a girl in her senses could be married without her own consent! It would be impossible to be married and not know it."

Dawn stood quite still for a full minute, surveying her antagonist. The beautiful color had flown into her cheeks again at mention of untruth, but, as was her wont in moments of great provocation, she had herself under perfect control. The elder woman acknowledged to herself that the girl was very beautiful, and lay there watching her victim with a degree of satisfaction she would not have felt, could she have known what was passing in the girl's mind.

Dawn's voice was clear and controlled when she spoke again. All excitement seemed to have gone out of it, but every word went straight to the mark like sharp steel:

"You say I have robbed you of your son. You may have him back again at once. I did not ask him to marry me, and I cannot stay in your house if you doubt my word. I shall never trouble either of you again."

She turned swiftly and silently and went out of the room, closing the door noiselessly behind her. The old lady lay still in blank astonishment. For any one to speak to her in that manner was unprecedented. To disappear and leave no opportunity for rebuke was outrageous. She felt helpless and outgeneraled. Not in years had her superiority been so rudely set aside as during this whole affair. For the moment she was bewildered, and lay thinking it over, unable even to make up her mind whether or not she should pull the bell rope and call some of the family, to tell what had happened. Truth to tell, she was mortified that her well-laid plan had ended so ignominiously.

Dawn went swiftly across the hall to the door of her own room, which she had left so joyously a short hour before.

The candles had burned low, but the firelight was flickering softly over everything, and made the room look a very haven of comfort. The poor child searched it furtively now, to make sure that no one was there. For just a moment she stood in the middle of the room, looking about, her hands clasped tragically over her heart, her eyes full of unspoken agonies. The whole ugly import of the new mother's words swept over her and seemed as if it would overwhelm her. Then she girded herself to carry out the resolution she had formed, her proud nature stung to the quick.