“I have an inkling,” replied Edith, “but do not quite understand.”
“She is my sister!” Like a wail the words came from Imelda’s lips. She had managed to hide her real feelings while in the atmosphere of the sick room, but now she was in danger of losing control of herself.
CHAPTER XXX.
“Come with me,” said Edith, and she led the way to a room at the other end of the hall.
“Here we will be undisturbed, and you can tell me all you wish to impart. But I wish you to understand that I expect you to say nothing that may cause you pain to recall. The fact that this girl is your sister makes her much less a stranger to me than she would otherwise have been. Come, sit here in this chair, here where you will be shaded from the rays of the setting sun. Now, if you are comfortable you may proceed.”
What a cozy, homelike room it was. A bright glowing red was the predominating color, softened by the lace curtains and snowy draped bed. Here and there was a dash of gold. The warm hues seemed just suited to the glowing beauty of the girl who sank into a seat opposite the chair wherein she had placed Imelda, and here, in the cool half-dark room, was told the sad story of how this wayward sister had left the home of her childhood to go with her lover.
Of her own suspicion, however, that Cora had never been a wife Imelda could not bring herself to speak. How could she know how these sisters would judge? She only told that from the hour that Cora had left her home until now they had never seen her; never heard from her, “and now I am afraid,” added Imelda, “she will be a burden upon your hands, an imposition upon your kindness for an indefinite length of time.”
“Hush! Not so, my friend,” interrupted Edith. “I may call you friend, may I not? Would I not have done as much for an utter stranger. Why then not do it for one whom my brother holds most dear, meaning yourself, of course; and I can not help accepting your sister in the same light. But,” she added smiling, “do you not think we have treated your friend Mrs. Westcot, rather badly considering it is over an hour since we left her alone to pass the time away as best she could,—and now the shades of night are beginning to fall.”
Imelda uttered a little frightened cry. “O, I had forgotten! Poor Alice. I must go to her at once. But first, if you will permit, I must see Cora is still resting.” So, stopping for a moment to inquire of Hilda as to the condition of the patient, and being assured that she was still asleep and perfectly quiet, the two found their way down the wide stairway to where the little woman had been left to entertain herself. Here they found that that tired little morsel of humanity had fallen fast asleep in the depths of the large arm chair wherein she had settled herself, while the little girls seeing “Mamma” asleep and having been taught at such a time to be very quiet had climbed into a chair, which Meta had pushed up to a window, and were watching the stream of travel and traffic on the street.
As the door opened little Meta turned her head and seeing Imelda uttered a glad cry. It had been a tiresome task to entertain the baby mind of Norma, and the little heart beat joyfully at the prospect that the charge was over. The cry woke Alice who started up a little confused, but immediately she remembered where she was. Edith apologized for her seeming neglect, but added: