"Perhaps
Miss Cheney will find her grief less, now that she has imparted it to
me. I am alarmed at her condition, and I shall hope for an early
report from you regarding her."
The report was made twelve hours later. Miss Cheney was delirious,
and calling constantly for the rector. Her physician feared the
worst.
The rector came, and his presence at once soothed the girl's
delirium.
"History repeats itself," said Preston Cheney meditatively to
himself. "Alice is drawing this man into the net by her alarming
physical condition, as Mabel riveted the chains about me when her
mother died.
"But Alice really loves the rector, I think, and she is capable of a
much stronger passion than her mother ever felt; and the rector loves
no other woman at least, and so this marriage, if it takes place,
will not be so wholly wicked and unholy as mine was."
The marriage did take place three months later. Alice Cheney was not
the wife whom Mrs Stuart would have chosen for her son, yet she urged
him to this step, glad to place a barrier for all time between him
and Joy Irving, whose possible return at any day she constantly
feared, and whose power over her son's heart she knew was
undiminished.
Alice Cheney's family was of the best on both sides; there were
wealth, station, and honour; and a step-grandmamma who could be
referred to on occasions as "The Baroness.
Pages:
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141