pulses.
“She will learn, she must learn, in my tenderest love, to forget that unasked question of her brooding eyes—‘My father!’
It is better that she never knows—best for us all.” This task of induced forgetfulness was the mother’s single ambition now.
The arrangements for departure were rapidly progressing, and as the time of roses came nearer, Elaine could not disguise her increasing restlessness in noting Hugh Conyers’ absence.
The saddened eyes of his sister brought a sudden alarm to Elaine’s heart.
For a pride as strong as her own had kept them tenderly apart.
The modest household of Roundsman Dan Daly had been enriched with all the splendors removed from the Elmleaf, and Mary Daly daily blessed the generous hand which had given to her the home in which the very spirit of happiness seemed to have nestled.
And only there, in that modest home, of all the circle, was there peace and rest, for both the mother and daughter at Lakemere, in tender deceit, guarded the heart secrets which they dared not own.
The silent resentment of Sara Conyers against the self-banishment of her brother was now growing into a doubt of Elaine Willoughby’s womanly gratitude.
“Between her and Hugh I have no choice,” the angered womanly champion of an absent brother decided. “Back to our old eyrie we go together, or else, I will share Hugh’s foreign exile.” And she marveled at her brother’s imperative injunction of silence as to his plans.