or you," she exclaimed, "the best of news."
Lottie tossed aside the magazine and raised herself on her elbow. She
had a pretty, ineffectual face and a girlish figure, and, despite her
faded colouring, looked almost helplessly young. Her round white hands
were as weak as a child's.
"I'm sure I don't know what it can be," she returned. "You look awfully
well in that red waist, Eugie. I think I'll get one like it."
Eugenia picked up a child's story book from the rug and laid it on the
table; then she stood looking gravely down on the younger woman.
"Can't you guess what it is?" she asked.
Lottie looked up with a nervous blinking of her eyes. She had paled
slightly and she leaned over and drew an eiderdown quilt across her
knees.
"It--it's not about Bernard?" she asked in a whisper.
"Yes, it is about Bernard. You may go to him and bring him home. You may
go to-morrow. Oh, Lottie, doesn't it make you happy?"
Lottie drew the eiderdown quilt still higher. She was not looking at
Eugenia, and her mouth had grown sullen. "I don't see why you send me,"
she said. "Why can't Jack Tucker bring him home? He's with him."
"But I thought you wanted to go," returned Eugenia blankly.
"I haven't seen him for six years," said Lottie, her face still turned
away. "He is almost a stranger--and I am afraid of him."
"Oh, Lottie, he loves you so!"
"I don't know," protested Lottie. "He has been so wicked."
Eugenia was looking down upon her with dismayed eyes.
"Don't you love him, Lottie?" she asked.
For a moment the other did not reply. Her lips trembled and her knees
were shaking beneath the eiderdown quilt. Then with a slow turn of the
head she looked up doggedly. "I believe I hate him," she answered.
A swift flush rose to Eugenia's face, her eyes flashed angrily, she took
a step forward. "And you are his wife!" she cried.
But Lottie had turned at last. She flung the quilt aside and rose to her
feet, her girlish figure quivering in its beribboned wrapper. There were
bright pink spots in her cheeks.
"Yes, I am his wife, God help me," she said.
Eugenia had drawn back before the childish desperation. Lottie had never
revolted before--she had thought Eugenia's thoughts and weakly lived up
to Eugenia's conception of her duty. She had been meek and amiable and
ineffectual; but it came to Eugenia with a shock that she had never
admired her until to-day--until the hour of her rebellion.
She spoke sternly--as she
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