The Press., 1894-10-11
CHAPTER VI.


 change had come upon her. With that strange ride had gone the last flicker of the desire for savage life ill her. She knew now the position she held toward her husband; that he had never loved her; that she was only an instrument for unworthy retaliation. So soon as she could speak after her accident she told them that they must not write to him and tell him of it. She also made them promise that they would give him no news of her at all, s;tvc that she was we'll. They could not refuse to promise. They felt she had the right to demand much moro than that. They had begun to care for her for herself, and when the months went by and one day there was hush about her room and anxiety and then relief in the faces of all, they came to care for her still more for the sake of her child.
 As the weeks passed the fair haired child grew more and more like his fa- ther, but if Lali thought of her husband they never knew by anything she said, for she would not speak of him. She also made them promise that they would not write to him of the child's birth. Richard, with his sense of justice and knowing how much the woman had been wronged, said that in all this she had done quite right; that Frank, if he had done his duty after marrying her, should havo come with her. And be- cause they all felt that Richard had been her best friend as well as their own they called the child after him. This also was Lali's wish. Coincident with her motherhood there came to Lali new purpose. She had not lived with the Armours without absorbing some of their fine social sense and dignity. This, added to the native instinGs of pride in her, gave her a new ambition. As hour by hour the child grew dear to her, so hour by hour her husband grew away from her. She schooled herself against him. At times she thought she hated him. She felt she could never forgive him, but she would prove to him that it was she who had made the mistake of her fife in marrying him; that she had been wronged, not he, and that hia sin would face him with reproach and pun ishment one day. Richards prophecy was likely to come true. She would de- feat very perfectly indeed Franks in tentions. After the child was born, so soon as she was able, she renewed her studies with Richard and Mrs. Armour. She read every morning for hours; she rode; she practiced all those graceful arts of the toilet belonging to the social convention; she showed an unexpected faculty for singing and practiced it faithfully, and she begged Mrs. Ar mour and Marion to correct her at every point where correction seemed neces- sary. When the enid was two years old, they all went to London, something against Lali's personal feelings, but quite ill accord with what she felt her duty.
 Richard was left behind at Greyhope. alone with his old quiet duties and rec reations. During that time he had not neglected his pensioners-his poor, sick, halt and blind-but a deeper, larger in- terest had come into his life ill the per son of Lali. During all that time she had seldom been out of his sight, never out of his influence and tutelage. His days had been full, his every hour had been given keen responsible interest. As if by tacit consent, every incident or development of Lali's life was inf1u enced by his judgment and decision. He had been more to her than General Ar mour, Mrs. Armour or Marion. Schooled as he was ill all the ways of the world, he had at the same time mind as sen sitive as woman's, an indescribable gentleness, a persuasive temperament. Since, years before, he had withdrawn from the social world and become re- cluse many of his finer qualities had gone into an indulgent seclusion. He had once loved the world and the gay life of London, but some untoward event, coupled with a radical love of retirement, had sent him into years of isolation at Greyhope.
 His tuteIar relations with Lai had reopened many all old spring of sensa- tion and experience. Her shy depend ency, her innocent inquisitiveness, had searched out his remotest sympathies