Rose MacLeod

								

warmed the words.
"Grandmother, you must be tired," said Electra affectionately. "Let me
go to your room with you, and see you settled."
"Nonsense!" said the old lady briskly. "Nonsense! I'm going, but I don't
need any help. Good-by, Miss MacLeod. I shall want to see you again when
I have a head on my shoulders."
She had gone, and still Electra made no sign of bidding her guest sit
down again. Instead, she turned to Rose with an engaging courtesy.
"You will excuse me, won't you? I ought to go to grandmother. She is far
from strong."
Rose answered quickly,--
"Forgive me! I will go. But"--she had reached the door, and paused there
entreatingly--"when may I see you again?"
"Grandmother's coming will keep me rather busy," said Electra, in her
brilliant manner. "But I shall take great pleasure in returning your
visit. Good-by."
Rose, walking fast, was out upon the road again, blind to everything
save anger, against herself, against the world. She had come to America
upon an impulse, a daring one, sure that here were friendliness and
safety such as she had never known. She had found a hostile camp, and
every fibre in her thrilled in savage misery. Half way along the
distance home Peter came eagerly forward to her from the roadside where
he had been kicking his heels and fuming. The visit to Osmond had not
been made. At the plantation gate he had turned back, unable to curb his
desire to know what had gone on between these two. At once he read the
signs of her distress, the angry red in her cheeks, the dilated eye.
Even her nostrils seemed to breathe defiance or hurt pride. She spoke
with unconsidered bitterness.
"I ought never to have come."
"What was it? Tell me."
"It was nothing. I was received as an ordinary caller. That was all."
"Who received you?"
"She. Electra."
"What then?"
"I was presented to her grandmother as my father's daughter, not as her
brother's--wife." She was breathless upon the word. All the color went
out of her face. She looked faint and wan.
"But it couldn't be," he was repeating. "Didn't you speak of Tom at
all?"
"No."
"Didn't she?"
"No."
He essayed a bald and unreasonable comfort.
"There, you see! You didn't mention him, and Electra hardly brings
herself to do it to any one. He never ceased being a trial to her. You
must let me say that."
"Ah, that wasn't it! Every time I might have spoken, a hand, a clever,
skillful hand and cold as ice pushed me away. I can never speak of it.
She won't let me."
He was with her, every impulse of his eager heart; but a tardy
conscience pulled him up, bidding him remember that other loyalty.
"Give her time," he pleaded. "It's a shock to her. Perhaps it ought not
to be; but it is. Everything about Tom has always been a shock."
She, as well as he, remembered now that they spoke of Electra, whose
high-bred virtues he had extolled to her in those still evenings on