Thinking that Lilian might explain, Lawrence hastened off leaving them alone.
“Oh, sister,” cried Lilian, when he was gone. “Come upstairs to our room, where I can tell you all about it and how unhappy I am.”
In a moment they entered their chamber, and throwing her bonnet and shawl on the floor, Lilian threw herself into the middle of the bed, and half smothering herself with the pillows, began her story, to which Geraldine listened with flashing eyes and burning cheeks.
“The wretch!” she exclaimed, when Lilian had finished. “Of course she enticed him. It’s like her; but don’t distress yourself, Lily dear. I can manage it, I think.”
“It don’t need any managing,” sobbed Lilian, “now that we’ve got home. He always loves me best here, and he’ll forget that hateful Mildred.”
This was Lilian’s conclusion. Geraldine’s was different. Much as she hated Mildred Howell, she knew that having loved her once, Lawrence would not easily cease to love her, let him be where he would, and though from Lilian’s story she inferred that he had not yet fully committed himself, she knew he would do so, and by letter, too, unless she devised some means of preventing it. Still she would not, for the world, that Lawrence should suspect her designs, and when at dinner she met him at the table, her smiling face told no tales of the storm within. Mr. Thornton was absent, and for that she was glad, as it gave her greater freedom of action.
“Where’s Lily?” Lawrence asked, a little anxious to hear what she had to say.
With a merry laugh, Geraldine replied:
“Poor little chicken, she can’t bear her grief at all, and it almost killed her to find that you preferred another to herself. But she’ll get over it, I daresay. Mildred is a beautiful girl; and though I always hoped, and indeed expected, that you would marry Lilian, you are, of course, at liberty to choose for yourself; and I am glad you have made so good a choice. When is the happy day?”
Lawrence was completely duped, for, manlike, he did not see how bitterly one woman could hate another, even while seeming to like her, and his heart warmed toward Geraldine for talking of this matter so coolly.