Liane had become absorbed into Boston's great army of busy working girls. Lizzie White had secured her a position at a glove counter in the same store with herself, and granny had rented two cheap rooms in Mrs. Brinkley's house, and gone to housekeeping.
Her resentment against Liane continued unabated, and she never gave the girl a kind word, but she refrained from acts of violence, lest her meek slave should rebel and leave her alone, in her old age and poverty, to fight the battle of a useless existence.
Meanwhile Judge Devereaux had died and been buried with the pomp and ceremony befitting his wealth and position, and his son and daughter had inherited his millions.
Roma Clarke did not fail to send a letter of the sweetest sympathy to her former lover—a letter that in writing and expression was so far different from Liane's letter that he could not fail to note the difference.
"Poor Liane! What a pity her mind is not as cultured as her lovely face!" he thought, with a bitter pang.
Since the day of their meeting on the avenue, he had not seen Liane, and he supposed she had seen the sights of the city, bought some garish finery, and returned to the wretched hovel she called her home.
He despised her for her shallow coquetry, but he could not help pitying her poverty, and the wretched life with the old hag, from whose brutal violence he had once rescued her at the cost of a broken arm.
"How gladly I would have taken her from her wretched lot to a life of love and luxury, but she preferred Dean. I wonder if he has justified her hopes?" he thought bitterly.
He grew more and more curious on the subject after his father's burial, in the quiet that comes to a house of mourning, and he suddenly resolved to return to Stonecliff and find out for himself.
The little seaside town looked very gloomy in the downpour of a cold November rain, and the boom of the sea, lashed to fury in a storm, was disquieting to his nerves, but he sallied forth to the post office, and stood on the steps, watching to see Liane passing by on her way from work, as on the first day he had seen her lovely face.