There were four children from this second marriage, two girls and two boys; the girls being the eldest. All four were away at school. Mr. and Mrs. Wallace were away spending the hot summer months at some mountain resort. The girls having vacation, nothing averse, took charge of the house, expecting later in the season to spend a week or two on some quiet country farm. To the circumstance of the absence of the rest of the family was it due that Cora had found such a haven of rest under this roof prepared by the kind and loving hearts and hands of this sister pair. That she herself was the sister of one who had such a warm friend in that absent brother who to them personated the whole of manly graces and perfections, made it to seem more like a privilege than otherwise that they should have been permitted to lavish their tenderest care upon her; besides the sufferer had won for herself a place in these sisterly hearts that was all her own, a place that no one would be able ever to deprive her of.
Alice had often called during the past two weeks but as yet had not seen the injured girl. Somehow Cora had always been asleep and it was deemed unwise to awaken her. Norman also had found his way several times to the Wallace abode, as indeed it would have been strange if he had not. When making his first visit he said:
“It seems we are destined to love under difficulties—always someone claiming the love and attention of the woman that I would fain monopolize.” When he heard that in this case the claim came from the lost and erring sister a cloud had for a moment rested upon his manly face. Then gravely and tenderly he had said, kissing the pure forehead of the girl he loved,
“Do what you think is your duty, and what you think is best, my sweetheart. I would not have you do otherwise,”—and then Imelda had gone back to her sister’s bedside with a much lighter heart and with a new sense of happiness. Today, as she stood watching the face of the sleeping sister, thoughts and feelings came crowding upon her that she herself might have found difficult to analyze. Poor Cora, thought Imelda, how manifold and how oft painful had been her experiences. If she had dealt many a cruel blow to others, in the thoughtlessness of youth, it was very evident that she had suffered much and keenly, and yet—looking at her experiences without prejudice, was she not, in some respects, more to be envied than to be pitied or condemned? This very reckless daring that was Cora’s chief characteristic, had secured to her a term of such intense, such exquisite happiness that Imelda, with her high strung morals, could never hope to attain, and as she bent to kiss the sleeping girl she whispered:
“You possess more courage than the sister you think so pure. You are more true to nature and to yourself than I.”
When Cora awoke, refreshed from a long sleep, she would have resumed the recital of her story but Imelda positively refused to listen. Instead the invalid was again arrayed in the pretty wrapper and, with the assistance of Hilda, was led down the broad stairway to the handsome parlor. Here the trio of girls read, played and sang for her amusement, and several times during the evening Cora’s clear, sweet laugh rang out, making music in Imelda’s heart. An unbroken night’s rest followed, and the next morning found the sisters once more seated by the window and Cora ready to take up the thread of her narrative where she had left off the day before.
“Owen Hunter was the only child of very wealthy parents. They were the possessors of millions. All the advantages that wealth can procure had been his. At college he had graduated with the first honors. He was gifted with talents of high order—a poet born; a musical genius, and his gift of song alone would have made him famous, had he so desired. But, as is so often the case with natures of this kind, he was very impulsive. The blood in his veins was extra hot, and at the early age of eighteen he had got himself entangled with a dark-eyed southern beauty, whom he deemed the perfection of all womankind. His mother had died when he was sixteen, else she might perhaps have been able to guide him with loving gentleness where reason and parental commands failed. The girl with whom he had fallen so madly in love was also wealthy, and had had the benefit of a thorough education—that is, a fashionable one. She knew how to dance, how to bow gracefully. She possessed an exhaustless supply of small talk, quick of repartee, brilliant and witty. She knew how to haughtily snub a social inferior—and so on through the long list of fashionable accomplishments.
“Owen saw only the fascinating smile and the wild, witching beauty that had set fire to his brain. For some reason his father was opposed to an alliance with Leonie Street. Perhaps he better read beneath the attractive surface. But Owen was determined, and when he was scarcely twenty he married the girl who had so completely bewildered his senses. Young as he was he was at the head of a large business firm. His father of late had been in poor health, and upon the young man’s shoulders was laid the burden that had become too heavy for those of the older man. And when his father died, stepping into his inheritance he found himself worth some twenty millions of dollars.
“Long ere this, however, Owen Hunter discovered that he had made a grand matrimonial mistake. The woman he had married was only a fashion plate, with this difference. A fashion plate is called inanimate, whereas Mrs. Hunter was possessed of a temper so fiery that she became quite dangerous when something occurred to arouse her ire. In her passionate moods she was so vulgar as to be disgusting. One babe had come, but as if her passion was a poison that killed, the little thing lived only a few days, and none other ever came.
“Of short duration had been their honeymoon. She managed soon to thoroughly disenchant her boy husband—to cure him of the infatuation that had led him to brave even his father’s displeasure; displeasure which might have meant a great deal to him, as his father was noted for a certain bull-dog tenacity or stubbornness. When once he took a stand, either for or against, he would hold to it, to the bitter end, no matter if later he found that only he was in the wrong and all others in the right.