On the fourth morning following, she opened her eyes in a beautiful room in one of the elegant homes of a New York city suburb. It was still early, and she lay quiet for a few minutes, feasting her beauty-loving eyes on the evidences of abundant means and highly cultured taste spread lavishly about her. She had been too weary the night before to take in any details, except a bed. Mrs. Dunlap was accustomed to the position of honored guest in all sorts of homes. She could accommodate herself to the furnishings of the plainest home with a grace that was one of her charms; but she confessed to her very intimate friends that when "the lines fell to her in pleasant places," it always stirred an extra note of thanksgiving in her heart. There was certainly nothing lacking here; nothing to offend the most fastidious taste, or for the most exacting to desire.
The days and nights just past had been strenuous ones to this always industrious woman. There had been first the rapid journey involving another failure in appointment, for this woman who prided herself on never failing; an equally rapid return to the East, reaching her next engagement just in time; then two hours by rail to her evening appointment; and here she was taking breath in a lovely room with a whole day of rest before she had to start again!
She was in no haste to move. Her thoughtful hostess had urged her not to hasten down in the morning. "We do not breakfast until nine, and not always then if the head of the house is absent; as he is now I am sorry to say. I have always wanted him to meet you. Dear Mrs. Dunlap, I may as well confess that I am awfully proud of my husband!" The sentence had closed with an apologetic laugh.
What a transparent little lady her hostess was! She ought to be very happy, with a husband of whom she was "awfully" proud, a beautiful home crowded with all the luxuries that wealth could produce, and probably not a care in the world!
Mary Dunlap could not resist a little sigh of pity for herself; she was a lonely woman. Her husband and home and child all gone from her. She, too, had been "proud" of her husband with abundant reason; and her beautiful girl. But her girl was safe. The terrors of this awful world could not touch her.
She thought of "Daisy," and shuddered for the narrowness of her escape. Had she escaped? Would that wretch try to find her again? Perhaps she had not done her whole duty. She ought to have warned the mother. What were mothers about, to be so careless? But for that disabled engine, the child would have gone straight on her dangerous way!
Very slowly at last she went about the business of dressing, enjoying luxuries of the toilet not found ordinarily in hotels or boarding houses, and reveling in costly trifles lavishly furnished. Even in the halls she came upon treasures of art to study over, and as she lingered before them, she told herself with a half wistful smile that she must have a care lest she become envious of Mrs. Oliver.
Then she fell to moralizing. Was it probable that her hostess had her heart's desire in all things? It looked so.
There were two daughters, she had heard, who were their mother's joy and pride also. Certainly the outward appearance of the home left nothing to wish for. In such an atmosphere it was hardly possible to avoid thinking of sharply contrasted lives. Not her own, though the contrast there was marked enough. Still, she lived a busy and, she believed, a useful life, and was happy in her work. But she knew women—many of them—to whom the word "happy" could not be applied; women with warped, stunted, yes—wrecked lives!
Instantly with that word, her thoughts flew again to "Daisy," the acquaintance of a day, who had been so close to wreckage and who had made a permanent place for herself in this mother-heart. That awful man! Would she ever meet him again? If so, what would happen! What if she should meet him under circumstances that would compel her acknowledgement of him as an acquaintance? For instance, what if he should, after all, become Daisy's husband! She recoiled from the thought as she might have done from a blow; yet one could not be sure; the child had given herself unreservedly to him, unworthy of her as he seemed. Perhaps her love would redeem his life! Ought she not to hope so? Yet her very soul revolted from it!