Now Jewel had an elegant home on the same street with the Meredith mansion, and Mrs. Wellings, as her companion and chaperon, was mistress of a home where the most elegant entertainments were given, and where life was always at its gayest, for the beautiful heiress loved to surround herself with light-hearted people, and to live always in the midst of pleasure, perhaps that she might keep at bay the pangs of remorse that must sometimes have pierced her heart if she had given herself time to think of those whose lives she had ruined.
Winter was coming on again, and at last Laurie Meredith was coming home. He could not hold out longer against the prayers of his mother and sisters, so he had promised to return from that long exile, in which he had been a restless, unhappy wanderer, seeking:
"Respite—respite and nepenthe from his memories of Lenore."
Jewel contrived to make one of the home party when he arrived, and he could not help but see into what a magnificent-looking woman she had grown since he went away.
The rich, trailing robe of ruby velvet, trimmed with gray fur, was very becoming to her stately style, and her eyes were bright with welcome as he clasped her beautiful hand.
Lovers by the score she had had since she came to Boston, but none had erased from her passionate heart the image of handsome Laurie Meredith, for whose sake she had sinned so deeply and recklessly, and now she felt that her long waiting was about to be rewarded.
He had had time to forget Flower, and surely he could not longer remain cold to her love and her charms.
It gave him a pang to see her, for she always recalled Flower to his mind, and the thought of his lost love was always painful.
But he chided himself for his reluctance at meeting her, and perhaps his welcome was doubly cordial on that account; and his family, seeing it, made up their minds that the pair were fond of each other in a tenderer fashion than they had suspected.