She had conquered Georgie wholly, and she began to feel a kind of pity for the proud woman who had been so terribly humbled, and who hereafter would inevitably stand somewhat in fear of her.
“Georgie,” she continued, “I have no wish to quarrel with you. I loved Edna Churchill before I knew who she was. You will like her, too, when you know her better, but she will never be your sister. Don’t fear for that, though Jack did love her once, and asked her to be his wife, up at Rocky Point last summer, and she refused him; and now the great, kind-hearted fellow has come to me to be consoled, and, Georgie, well,—I may as well tell you, for he said I might,—I am to be your sister some day, and I do not want to begin by quarrelling with you; I mean to make Jack a good wife and be a mother to little Annie; he told me about her, and I almost cried with thinking of the poor creature, sitting all day in her chair or lying in her crib so lonely, talking sometimes to herself, he said, and sometimes to you, for company, and again praying that Jesus will make her patient to bear the pain in her back and hip, which is dreadful at times. Yes, I mean to be kind to her, even if I worry Jack’s life out of him. Speak to me, Georgie, and say if you are glad I am to be your sister?”
Maude had offered her hand to Georgie, over whom a curious change had passed. The expression of fear was gone, and as Maude talked of Annie, there came a softer look into her face, and grasping Maude’s offered hand, she burst into such a passionate fit of weeping and bitter sobbing, that Maude, forgetting all her anger, knelt down beside her, trying to soothe and quiet her, and asking what was the matter, and if she had offended her.
“I did not want you to tell of Edna,” she said, “and I was harsh-with you about that; but, Georgie, I want to like you, and you must like me, for Jack’s sake, if nothing else.”
“I do, I will,” Georgie gasped; “but Maude, oh, Maude, why did you open a grave I had thought closed forever? I am glad you are to be Jack’s wife,—glad for him, and glad for Annie. She will have a mother in you, I know, and may God deal with you and yours as you deal with her; oh, my darling, my darling!”
In her excitement Georgie said more than she would otherwise have done, and with that passionate cry, “my darling, oh, my darling,” she seemed suddenly to recollect herself, and, wresting her hand from Maude, she rose up swiftly and went back to her own room, leaving Maude more perplexed and confounded, and more kindly disposed toward Georgie withal than she had ever been in her life.
“I have sealed her lips with regard to Edna,” she thought, “but I have wounded her cruelly somewhere. How she did cry about that little Annie, and what can the secret be that just the mention of it affects her so much?”
But wonder as she would, Maude was very far from the truth, and never dreamed of the cloud resting upon the woman, who in the next room sat with her head bowed down under a load of so bitter shame and humiliation, that it seemed as if she never again could lift it up as proudly and assuredly as she had done before. The world was very dark to Georgie then, and more evils than one seemed to be threatening her. Maude knew her secret, in part, if not in whole,—knew enough, at least, to blast her good name with Roy, should she dare to breathe a hint against Miss Overton. Her hands were tied in that direction, and when she remembered the admiring glances she had seen Roy give to Edna, and thought of all the opportunities he would have of seeing and knowing, ay, and of loving her, too, she writhed with pain, feeling an almost certain presentiment that this young girl, whom from the first she had to a certain degree felt to be her evil genius, had at last come between her and that for which she had waited and hoped so long. Purer, better thoughts, too, were stirring in Georgie’s heart,—thoughts of little Annie, to whom Maude was to be a mother.
“And I am glad,” she whispered; “for I know she will be kind to Annie, and, for Jack’s sake, will keep my miserable secret. Oh, that I should ever have come to this, when a word from a weak girl can turn me from my purpose! Yet so it is, and Edna Browning is safe; but, heavens! how I hate her!”
Georgie’s demon was possessing her again, and her black eyes blazed with passion as she thought of Edna Browning; but she could not do her harm, and she must pretend to like her, through her great fear of Maude, whom she felt as if she hated, too, until she remembered Annie; and then there came a gush of tears, which cooled her feverish passion, and made her more humble and subdued, as in her velvet slippers she paced the floor noiselessly, until she heard a distant clock striking the hour of two.