CHAPTER VII.
A WORTHY RESOLVE.
Miss Willoughby so dreaded an outbreak from Lelia that she did not seek her when she was singing so sweetly in the music-room.
She sat down in the corridor outside, where she could listen as well as her anxious mind would allow to the pleasant sounds.
The young girl sang on and on sweetly, but Laurie did not return to the musical calling of her tender voice.
Her heart all the while was swelling with impatient anger, and with a last crashing, discordant chord, she rose from the piano to seek him.
Then Miss Willoughby met her half-way.
“Oh, my dear, please do not leave the piano yet! I’ve been sitting here in the hall, enjoying your sweet songs so much!” she exclaimed eagerly. “Oh, it’s not eleven o’clock yet, my dear, and Laurie will be here presently. Do sing one more song, Lelia. I should like to hear ‘The Heart Bowed Down!”
“It’s too doleful. Where is Laurie?”
“He--he has gone on a little errand for me, Lelia, and he will be back soon.”
“But where did he go--and why? Has anything happened, Aunt Cy? You look frightened and pale, and your voice trembles. This is very strange!”
The old lady realized that the truth must out, for Lelia would not be denied further.
She quavered tremulously:
“I--I am afraid something has happened to Gipsy! She has never returned since morning.”
The blue eyes flashed proudly.
“That is nothing to me, aunt; I asked about Laurie.”
“I was going on to explain, my dear girl, but you interrupted me. I sent out the two men servants to search for the missing girl, and Laurie--by my wish--accompanied them, to point out the place where she disappeared.”
“Well?”
The word leaped from Lelia’s red lips with the intensity of a curse, and the lightning of her large blue eyes presaged a storm about to break.
She muttered low and furiously:
“Laurie had no right to go after the girl without my consent! He knows how I hate her and wish her dead!”
“Oh, Lelia! Lelia!”
Unheeding the old lady’s shocked remonstrance, she raged on:
“The artful hussy stayed away just to have him go to find her; I see clearly through her little game to win him from me! Oh, I saw her bold eyes fastened on his face with adoration this morning. She wishes to win a grand, rich husband, to steal my Laurie from me! Oh, I will pay him back for daring to go after her without telling me! I will break with him forever! I will give him back his ring!”
Miss Willoughby cried out reproachfully:
“Oh, Lelia, you would not be so heartless! How can you stoop to such insane jealousy of poor Gipsy, who is too far beneath Laurie’s social sphere ever to dream of him as a possible husband? Oh, come, my dear niece; this is quite unworthy of you, and unjust to Laurie and Gipsy. You are still unnerved by your fright of the morning, or you would never fancy such nonsense!”
Lelia’s only answer was an angry sob, and she fled precipitately through the hall up to her own room, rushing in and bolting the door against any intrusion from the frustrated old lady, who gazed after her in amazement, muttering:
“Oh, dear, what a cyclone! What a tempest in a teapot! And over such a trifle! Whatever possesses my beautiful niece to get jealous of poor Gipsy? Why, if this goes on long, I shall be as mad as a March hare! I have it! I’ll send Gipsy off somewhere, to stay till my nephew and niece are gone. It’s the only way to keep peace in the family.”
And having planned this easy solution of her difficulty, she threw open the window and gazed out with anxious eyes into the night, watching for the coming of the absentees.
She had never realized until this hour of deep anxiety that the young girl had made herself a warm place in her heart.
That her services were necessary to her comfort she frankly admitted, but that her presence was essential to her happiness she had never felt till now, when her prolonged absence and Lelia’s unjust jealousy had stirred her heart to a subtle warmth and pain.
The tear of pity trickled down her cheek as she leaned from the window, with her mind full of heavy thoughts, and she murmured:
“What is to become of the poor child when I am gone? She has just been handed on from one kind heart to another all her life, and there are none to whom she can turn by right. I realize now that I have acted selfishly, carelessly, toward Gipsy all her young life. She owes to other poorer people all the care and education she has had. I must show more interest in her hereafter, and leave her a legacy in my will in recognition of her faithful service since Mrs. Bond died.”
In such thoughts she whiled away the half-hour that intervened before the return of Laurie and the men bringing with them unconscious Gipsy Darke.