As Violet passed Mrs. Yorke’s door, she heard a faint voice call her name. She paused at the open door of the room.
“Did you speak, Mrs. Yorke?” she asked, timidly.
The invalid’s pale face flushed slightly.
“Yes. Will you come in here a moment?” she asked.
Violet entered the room and went over to the bedside. Mrs. Yorke was dressed in a silken wrapper, and lay upon the bed, her eyes shining with suppressed excitement.
“Violet Arleigh,” she began in a low tone, when the girl had come to the bedside and paused awaiting her pleasure, “I invited you here to Yorke Towers for a purpose. I have never liked you or your mother; she knew well the reason why. Violet Arleigh, I wish to ask you a question: do you care for my son?”
Silence! You could hear distinctly the beating of the girl’s frightened heart as she stood there before her censor—a little black-robed figure, her bright head bent, her eyes fixed upon the pale, eager face of the sick woman.
“You have asked me a question, Mrs. Yorke,” the girl said, quietly, “which I have no reason to be ashamed of answering. Yet you should have first spoken upon this subject to Leonard; the subject of my engagement should have been first mentioned by him, and not forced upon me. I do not deny the truth, Mrs. Yorke, I do care for your son very, very much—with all my heart, and I mean to make him a good, true, devoted wife!”
“Ah! So that is the situation, for sure?”
Mrs. Yorke’s voice was coldly sarcastic in its tone.