"Kathleen, my darling, do marry me! Can't you learn to love me just a little? I would be so fond of you, so devoted, that you could not help but learn to love me. And I am rich, you know. I would help you queen it over those insolent women."
Her heart leaped at his words; pride carried the day.
"I would do it—if—if—I—thought I could learn to love you; and that ought to be easy, because you have been so good to me, and I am so grateful," she murmured.
It did seem easy at the moment. Teddy was true, Teddy loved her, while Ralph Chainey was false and cruel. Why should she wear the willow for him? Why lie down in the dust, while her heartless step-mother and step-sister trampled on her rights and her feelings? So in a fury of resentment, Kathleen gave Teddy her promise to marry him and to learn to love him.
[CHAPTER XXXVII.]
RALPH CHAINEY IS DRIVEN TO DESPERATION, AND TURNS ON HIS FOE.
Even now, I tell you, I wonder
Whether this woman called Estelle
Is flesh and blood, or a beautiful lie
Sent up from the depths of hell.
Edmund Clarence Stedman.
Ralph Chainey went from Alpine's presence to his home in Sumner, one of the beautiful suburbs of Boston, and to the presence of his gentle widowed mother, who presided over a lovely home that was shared with her by an older son and his small family.
"Ralph, dear, you look pale. You are ill!" she exclaimed, anxiously.