"I have spoiled his life for years, but at last he will be happy," she said, thinking bitterly of that year in which she had lived with Eliot, less to him, as she thought, than his sisters, or the governess even, wearing his name because it had been given not in love, but through an instinct of tender pity.
She was older, wiser, now than she had been before Sylvie made that cruel revelation to her that winter night, and she chafed with shame at remembering the position she had filled in Eliot's home—that of a wife in name only, unloved and barely endured.
"How they must have pitied and despised me!" she thought, with hot tears in her dark eyes as the express train rushed along through the night. "Ah, it is better, better for us both that things fell out as they did. I have a very jealous mind. I should never have forgotten that he loved Ida Hayes first, that he married me for pity's sake, so I never should have been quite sure of his heart. Ah, I wish—wish," with a choking sob, "that we had died together in madame's underground prison!"
And in this wretched frame of mind, bitter and despairing, Una went away from Boston and her husband, back to the South and the Convent of Le Bon Berger.
[CHAPTER XLIII.]
Before the wedding-day rolled around Maud and her betrothed had persuaded Edith and Eliot to accompany them on their wedding-journey South. In fact, they were not hard to persuade, for Eliot, in a mood of desperation, felt almost ready to storm the convent walls and carry away his beloved, obdurate Una, while Edith was charmed at the idea of rushing so precipitately from the icy streets and freezing wind of Boston to the sunshine and flowers of a warmer clime.
So, one bright March morning, about six years from the time of Eliot's former visit to New Orleans, the party found themselves driving through the streets of the Crescent City to the palatial home of Pierre Carmontelle, which, during the two months of his betrothal to Maud, had been elegantly refitted for his bride.
New Orleans was in a great stir and bustle then, for it was the first year of the Southern Exposition. The city was crowded with visitors from all parts of the United States.
Maud and Edith were charmed with the quaint old city, and the warm, sweet air, and took the greatest pleasure in threading the Exposition grounds, exclaiming with delight when now and then they encountered the familiar faces of Northern friends, sight-seeing like themselves.