She had loved sweet Violet in a careless, cousinly fashion before, but now all her love turned to jealous hate.
Pacing the floor of her sumptuous apartment, like a beautiful, angry tigress, she brooded over her bitter defeat, and wondered how she could punish her cousin for the triumph she had won.
Nothing she could do to Violet seemed too cruel to satisfy her thirst for revenge.
She would have liked to see her cousin dead in her coffin, and stand by and hear the clods rattling harshly down upon her grave. The sound would have been music in Amber’s ears. From a beautiful, imperious, loving girl, she was transformed into a jealous, angry, revengeful woman. Blighted love had changed the current of her thoughts, her hopes, her very life. She had but one aim now. It was to sweep her lovely rival from her path, and win Cecil Grant’s heart at last.
CHAPTER III.
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH.
Fate itself seemed to play into Amber’s hands.
Judge Camden had been away two months, leaving his granddaughters in charge of their chaperon, a distant widowed relative, and he was expected home that evening. Indeed, when Amber came down stairs presently, she found that he had already arrived.
She met him fondly, not through excess of love, for the judge was a stern old man, but because she hoped he had brought her a gift from the great city.
“Oh, grandpapa, welcome home! I have missed you so much!” she cooed, sweetly.
“Umph!” he grunted, ungraciously. “But where is Violet, eh?”